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The latest update as of October 15, 2021

While it was originally scheduled for the first weekend of October, the FUNNY CAR CHAOS World Finals was postponed due to a very unfavourable weather forecast for that weekend. Thankfully, they've got a much better forecast for this weekend, with warm-ish temps, reasonable humidty and light winds. The latest density altitude for the racers is well over 3000 ft. but that is foreast to drop into the low 2000's for the first qualifying session tonight at 7pm, and be down to 1500 ft for the second session at 10pm.

With 31 Funny Cars and at least a dozen AA/Fuel Altereds on the pre-entry list, plus Jet Dragsters, Nitro Harleys, Outlaw Top Sportsman, and more support classes, it promises to be the second biggest event on the FCC calendar. Unfortunately for the finals, the March race at the Texas Motorplex with 64++ Funny Cars is simply impossible to top.

Late breaking news: FCC has already got the 2022 date for that flopper extravaganza on the books, with March 24-26th chosen for the Funny Car Classic. It's going to be an overflow crowd of spectators and overflowing pits with every nitro burning funny car that wants to be part of a modern day 64 Funny Cars show. Scheduled two weeks after the NHRA Gatornationals, and one week before the Las Vegas 4-wide Nationals, there won't be any scheduling conflicts. It's going to be an absolutely don't miss event.

We've got the start of a large bonus of photos from the recent Dodge//SRT NHRA U.S. Nationals to present. We're not quite going in chronological order as we're leading off with the Friday evening Top Fuel qualifying session. Due to the shortened Indy schedule (Sunday eliminations) and a rainout on the Saturday, this was the one and only session, which saw a few big names miss the abbreviated cut. Namely, Clay Millican and Mike Salinas. The same fate befell a few front runners in other categories too, but we'll get to that later.

Our thanks go to arguably the best grandstand photographer in drag racing, Bill Jeffery, who's been gracious enough to share some of his great work with us over the years. There will be much more to come throughout the weekend, so stay tuned! And don't forget: BIG Bob Snyder is shooting right now at San Antonio, and we expect to see a large batch of his work in our inbox tomorrow morning. In the meantime, enjoy the Indy photos.

After a four-year layoff, Tripp Tatum (near lane) reappeared on the national tour with his own operation, laying down a very impressive 3.870 - 282.36 on his first attempt. Pulling away from him in the far lane was rookie Top Fuel racer Alex Laughlin in a Scott Palmer car, as he made the quickest pass of his short (just four races so far) TF career at 3.771 - 317.19 to take a (very) temporary #1 position in the 19-car field.

(LEFT) Reflecting the great conditions, Greg Carillo made an even better - and also career quickest - pass of 3.769 - 320.20 to displace Laughlin at the top of the charts. Considering it was his first pass at Indianapolis and only his third event of the year, it was quite a statement.

(RIGHT) A good side-by-sider followed, with part-timer Kyle Wurtzel (near lane) making his quickest pass of the season at 3.849 - 311.77, while in the far lane, "Nitro" Joe Morrison stayed with him past half track before clicking it a tad early to a 4.107 - 294.88 clocking.

Making his eighth appearance of the season in the Terry Haddock "Rent-a-Ride" dragster, Buddy Hull had some good early numbers before clicking it off early to a 41.62 - 257.63 timeslip, good enough for the #13 spot in the field at the end of the session.

Starting of the pairings of the Top Ten cars, Doug Kalitta (near lane) took on Billy "Captain Capco" Torrence in the far lane. They didn't disappoint as Kalitta took over the top spot with a very strong 3.751 - 317.05 pass, while Torrence slipped into the #3 spot with an almost-as-good 3.756 - 324.75 effort.

(LEFT) Running by himself as opponent Clay Millican smoked the tires early, Justin Ashley pushed his mount to a very good 3.796 - 324.05 to take the #6 position on the ladder. However, he had fallen to #9 by the end of the session.

(RIGHT) A matchup of Don Schumacher Racing stablemates featured Leah Pruett in the near lane, pulling away from Antron Brown in the far lane. Pruett kept the throttle open all the way to the 1000' mark, stopping the clocks at 3.755 - 322.88 (ultimately good for the #5 spot), while Brown lost traction and shut off to a 4.305 - 142.40 result.

Saving the best for last, as always, the top two drivers in the Top Fuel standings faced off, with Brittany Force in the near lane and Steve Torrence on the far side. They didn't disappoint as they ripped off the two quickest - and first in the 3.60's for the event - passes of the evening. Force stopped the clocks first with an awesome 3.684 - 334.57 for low e.t. and top speed, while Torrence trailed by only a whisker at 3.688 - 329.50 to take the second spot on the list. A great way to finish the first day of racing at the 67th annual Dodge//SRT NHRA U.S. Nationals.

The latest update as of October 13, 2021

Here's the latest points standings and possible season totals for the top ten in Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car. We'll put up a synopsis of how the championship battles may play out a little later. Like tomorrow. Note that there are only two contenders for the national title in either category and the #2 dragster contender (Jackie Fricke) needs to win the Dodge//SRT NHRA Nationals at Las Vegas to take the championship by ONE point. In Funny Car there is a serious battle brewing between Doug Gordon (defending champion) and Greg Bellemeur (multi-time champion). They'll both be at Vegas and it may come down to a head-to-head matchup for the title.

The latest update as of October 10, 2021

The first round of PRO eliminations at the Texas NHRA FallNationals have just finished at the Texas Motorplex. In Top Fuel, the top five contenders for the title all advanced and kept the pressure on points leader Steve Torrence. He's now just 31 points in front of #2 Brittany Force, but 128 points ahead of #3 Mike Salinas. The next two cars on the list (Billy Torrence & Justin Ashley) are just a few points in arrears, but when you get down to #6, the gap from there to the top is nearly 180 points. With just three races left on the schedule after today, that's a very tall mountain to climb.

Funny Car saw the top seven racers in the standings advance to the second round. While the #7 driver (Robert Hight) is 148 points behind the leader, Matt Hagan, the gap between the top four is less than 100 points. In second place at the moment is Ron Capps, sitting just 53 points in arrears, with John Force lurking just 22 points further back.

Pro Stock featured the narrowest margin between season-long points leader Greg Anderson, and his closest challenger, Erica Enders, who is only 21 points behind; barely one round win. From there, the gaps widen considerably, with #3 (Kyle "Kid Chaos" Koretsky) more than 100 points behind Anderson, and from there, the margins get wider and wider. Going into eliminations the #5 driver (Aaron Stanfield) sat 176 points behind Anderson, and next on the list #6 (Troy Coughlin Jr.) was more than 200 points back. Not mathematically eliminated yet, but it's getting closer all the time for the trailing drivers.

The final PRO category, Pro Stock Motorcycle, featured a very close battle for the points lead, with just 53 points separating the top four. Leading the pack going into eliminations was Steve Johnson, ahead of his closest challenger, Angelle Sampey, by just 25 points. Lurking just seven points further back was defending champion Matt Smith, with Eddie Krawiec just 21 points behind him. When the first round finished, only five of the countdown riders had advanced, with the top three (Steve Johnson, Angelle Sampey & Matt Smith) all moving forward. The #5 rider, Scotty Pollahceck stayed in the championship chase with his round win, but he's still 111 points behind Johnson. After him, no one else, other than possibly Angie Smith, who is 166 points out of first place, has a chance to contend.

It's all but over in the Top Alcohol Dragster championship, as perennial contender (#2 for four years running!) Shawn Cowie lost in the second round of eliminations yesterday to the "MPH King" Aaron Cooper. The window of opportunity for Cowie to close the points gap on leader Rachel Meyer was opened when Rachel and team-mate Julie Nataas both lost early in the second round, but it all came undone for Cowie when he shook/smoked the tires at the 300' mark. Cooper backed up his world record speed for an A/Fuel Dragster (set in qualifying on Friday at 286.62) with an almost as good 285.89 pass as he ran away from a shutoff Cowie. At this point the only racer with a mathematical chance of catching Meyer is #2 Jackie Fricke. "ALL" she has to do is win the FallNationls and the next event on the Top Alcohol calendar, Las Vegas, and she would become the champion by ONE point. Impossible? NO! Likely? NO!

It's a very different story in Top Alcohol Funny Car, as the points chase has come down to a two-way battle between defending champion Doug Gordon, and current points leader, (and multi-time series champion) Greg Bellemeur. With Bellemeur not in attendance at the Motorplex, Gordon mowed down his first two opponents in eliminations, and if he wins the event - which is not at all guaranteed due to a very tight and competitive field - will move into a 11 point lead going into the final two races of the season. He's entered both events, while Bellemeur has put in his entry for Las Vegas. That could be quite an event, especially if they meet head-to-head at some point in eliminations.

12:00 PM PDT Update:

The Top Fuel points race tightened up near the top, as the top three racers (Steve Torrence, Brittany Force & Justin Ashley) all advanced to the semi-finals. That group saw one new face (Justin Ashley) as he leapfrogged over the former #3 (Mike Salinas) as Ashley won and Salinas lost in the 2nd round of eliminations. In fact, the only other racer to enter the semi-finals is Josh Hart, who, while he didn't get into the countdown (due to running only half the schedule), is capable of winning at any time. Two racers that saw their championship hopes fade in the round were the (current) #4 Mike Salinas and #5 Billy Torrence, both of whom are about 150 points behind the leader.

Over in Funny Car, the biggest change was John Force being passed by Cruz Pedregon for the #3 spot. It's been quite a turnaround year for Pedregon as for the first time in quite a few years he's become a serious contender and going into the semi-finals he's only 94 points out of first place. Another racer who's still solidly in the hunt is former champion (2018) J.R. Todd, who sits in the #5 spot, 114 points behind #1 Matt Hagan. Two second round losers, Bob Tasca III and Robert Hight are falling back but still have a chance to make up the 138 and 168 point (respectively) gap to #1. However, it's going to take some losses by Hagan and lots of win lights for everyone else to change the standings.

There were some relatively large changes in the points standings in Pro Stock during the second round. #2 in points Erica Enders and #3 Dallas Glenn both lost in the round, which gave Greg Anderson some breathing room at the top of the heap. He can take full advantage of those losses by winning the event and really putting some serious space between him and the other contenders. Going into the semi-finals, Anderson is only 41 points in front of Enders, but 143 ahead of Glenn, and 146 in front of #4 Kyle Koretsky. The next three racers on the table all advanced to the semis, but they trail Anderson by 176, 206 & 222 points respectively. Not quite eliminated from the chase, but getting closer all the time.

Closing out the second round of PRO eliminations were, as usual, the motorcycles and they didn't disappoint as points leader Steve Johnson advanced, Angelle Sampey didn't, and defending champion Matt Smith took advantage of her loss and took the #2 rung on the ladder, just 32 points behind Johnson. In the semi-finals Smith will be racing..... Smith, as in his wife Angie Smith. He's got lane choice and really needs to win that round to keep pace with Johnson. All I'll say about that matchup is that it should be "interesting".

The semi-finals will see the top three racers in Top Fuel, plus Josh Hart, while Funny Car will feature four of the top five drivers. In Pro Stock, Greg Anderson only has the #5 through #7 racers to contend with, and if he wins the event will take a commanding lead in the standings. In Pro Bike, the top two riders, Steve Johnson and Matt Smith, will race, along with #7 (Angie Smith) and in a cameo appearance, Hector Arana Jr..

2:30 PM PDT Update:

The semi-final rounds saw two very close races in Top Fuel, with points leader Steve Torrence prevailing over Brittany Force by just .007 seconds. Joining him in the final round is Justin Ashley, who won his race by a "much" larger margin: .018 seconds. Making the win even sweeter for Ashley was gaining lane choice over Torrence for the final. In Funny Car, Cruz Pedregon's march to the top was halted by a Ron Capps holeshot and Matt Hagan booked his ticket to the final by taking out a double-stepping J.R. Todd. Pro Stock saw Greg Anderson move into his 8th final round (out of 15 events) this year, facing Chris McGaha who has climbed from 10th two races ago, to 8th, and now to 6th place in the standings. However, he's still 222 points behind Anderson going into the final round.

The only upset - and it was a big one - in the semi-finals was the failure to fire of points leader Steve Johnson. He could watch in chagrin as darkhorse Hector Arana Jr. bogged off the line and could only put down a 7.06 e.t. to go into the final round. Joining him there will be Matt Smith, who did the expected and dispatched his wife Angie in an easy pass. He left second but finished first when Angie's bike also bogged off the line.

Before the PRO finals ran, the Top Alcohol cars finished off their event. First up were the dragsters and it was a tension-filled match, with Jackie Fricke needing to win to keep her championship hopes alive. She did her job at both ends of the track, leaving first and running her best e.t. of the event, a winning 5.204- 275.73 to cover Matt Cummings close 5.240 - 271.79 effort. The funny cars ran next, with two west coast racers going for the win. Needing it more was defending national champion, Doug Gordon, and he took the win over Brian Hough by a to 5.562 - 262.69 decision. Hough did everything he could, leaving first with an .015 light, just a bit ahead of Gordon's very good .044 launch, but at the finish line it was less than half a car length between the racers. With the win, Doug Gordon moved into the #1 spot in the standings, 11 points in front of arch-rival Greg Bellemeur.

It should be mentioned that the reason for Bellemeur's non-attendance at this race was a HUGE engine explosion at last week's Mid-West Drag Racing Series event at Tulsa, OK. The "Killer B's" (Bellemeur, Boggs & Bartone) will be in Las Vegas in two weeks time to try to take the lead back, and will almost certainly be at Pomona for the season-ending race. We will post the updated points standings later today and explain what the various championship scenarios are, with just two national and one regional event left in the 2021 NHRA season.

4:00 PM PDT Update:

The final rounds have all been completed and they featured some very close racing, a small upset, and a pair of expected victories. Starting with Pro Stock Motorcycle, the prohibitive favourite, Matt Smith did the expected by defeating Hector Arana Jr., but it was an automatic win for Smith when Arana redlighted. It wasn't needed as Smith outran his opponent also, and with the win, moved into the points lead over Steve Johnson by just eight points. Despite her second round loss, Angelle Sampey stayed with striking distance of Smith, trailing him by just 53 points heading into the final three races of the year.

In Pro Stock, Greg Anderson won as expected, and it was also via redlight, as Chris McGaha took a run at the tree and went -.014 red, handing the win to Anderson. Making it extra special for Anderson was it being his 98th career national event win, breaking a tie with his former employer Warren Johnson, to become the all-time winningest driver in Pro Stock history. Quite an accomplishment, and the points earned moved him 81 in front of #2 Erica Enders. Losing in the 2nd round cost #3 Dallas Glenn as he fell 183 points behind Anderson, and in serious jeopardy of falling out of the championship battle.

Funny Car pitted the number one and two racers in the points standings. Yes, at this time of the year, it's ALL about the points picture(s). DSR team-mates Matt Hagan and Ron Capps faced off and they put on a great side-by-side race. Capps turned on the winlight by less than half a car length as he won on a holeshot with a 3.930 - 326.87 against Hagan's quicker 3.919 - 328.78. Making the difference was Capps' .042 launch, just a hair quicker than Hagan's .065 leave. Despite the loss in the final, Matt Hagan hung onto the points lead, now holding just 27 points above Capps. Trailing Hagan in third place is Cruz Pedregon, now 114 points behind, and #4 John Force, just one point behind Pedrgeon.

Finally it was time for the... final pair of the final round of eliminations. Justin Ashley showed just how hungry he was for his first win of the season as he left with a great reaction time: .035 for BOTH racers. He put down a 3.759 - 326.40 to turn back Steve Torrence's oh-so-close 3.764 - 321.81 by just .005 second over the points leader and heavy favourite. With the win points, Ashley solidified his hold on the #3 spot, albeit 121 points adrift of Torrence, but only 70 behind #2 Brittany Force. Three races to go now, continuing next week at Bristol's iconic Thunder Valley Raceway.

AND NOW.... SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT....

We've just started going through a large set of photos from Labor Day weekend's Dodge SRT// NHRA U.S. Nationals and here's one picture that stood out for so many good reasons. It's one of the famous '68 Barracuda Super Stock cars that make the Dodge/HEMI Challenge such an interesting event with an event. This year, 18 cars (4 Darts and 14 Barracudas), competed, and the car pictured here: The "Karolina Kuda" of South Carolina's Stephen Yantus. He qualified in the #2 position in the field, with a tremendous 8.480 - 156.64, just .05 behind the low qualifier.

Yantus picked up the pace in the first round of eliminations, running an even better 8.410 - 159.32 to move into the next round. Then he stayed consistent with a 8.423 - 158.97 to earn a bye run in the 3rd round. Another very good 8.426 - 159.19, moved him into semi-finals, where, unfortunately, he was a "no-show" due to breakage incurred during his bye run.

The latest update as of October 9, 2021

What if they held a drag race and no one was there to report on it, post it on social media, on a website, or put up the results on paper? Even worse, what if no one was there with a camera to make a photographic record of the event? Did that race actually exist? Or is it an event consigned to the dustbin of history, lost forever? That fate might have befallen the recent (three weeks ago) UNFC Southwest Nitro Shoot Out held at Tucson Dragway. Thankfully, our hard-working correspondent, BIG Bob Snyder was on hand to photograph the action and even provide us with some times and speeds to go with the photos.

While we're closely following the three NHRA events happening simultaneously today, we've got the Tucson photo processing underway and should have them all up later today. Stay tuned, but in the meantime, you can check out the Texas NHRA FallNationals, live and in colour, on NHRA.tv. Or, if you don't have a subscription to that streaming service, follow along on the NHRA.com website (on the home page, click on "Live Timing and Results") or keep refreshing the NHRA page on DragRaceCentral, as Rick Green keeps updating the results as fast as he can.

(LEFT) Lighting up the tires before making his first pass of the evening, Tim Boychuk blew the dust off his seldom-seen (in the past few years) "Happy Hour" Camaro.

(RIGHT) A good looking pairing led off the United Nitro Funny Cars action, with Canada's Tim Boychuk in the near lane, outrunning the "Quarter Pounder" of Keith Clark and Dale Van Gundy (driven by Geoff Monise). The clocks stopped quickly for Boychuk as he cranked out a very good 5.999 despite an early shutoff 197.02 speed. Monise had to get out of it early, finally stopping the timers at 11.392 - 76.44.

(LEFT) The very photogenic "Speed Sport" Dodge Omni of James Day put down a solid burnout.

(RIGHT) With both cars launching hard, Day, in the near lane, started to pull away from the Camaro-bodied "Problem Child" of Billy Morris. And that was it for the first round of the UNFC (United Nitro Funny Cars) segment of the show. Next up: AA/Fuel Altereds! Eight of them! Stay tuned!

(LEFT) Winner of the shortest tow (distance) award was the Phoenix-area team of Robert and Dylan Winefsky. They whipped their "Nitro Moose" through the burnout procedure before their first round match.

(RIGHT) When the ambers flashed, Winefsky (near lane) left first and easily pulled away from Kevin Knowles (far lane) in the "Neese & Knowles" entry.

(LEFT) The first pair of AA/Fuel Altereds featured Ray Stringer in his "Blown Cent-Less" car, which is actually his Funny Car Chaos car with the body switched to an altered. He got the tires spinning hard on the burnout before his first pass.

(RIGHT) Appearing to be running by herself, Paula Martin behind the wheel of John Aleman's iconic "Sheepherder" AA/FA, is actually late leaving as Ray Stringer's car is almost out of the frame as Paula goes by the tree.

(LEFT) Albuquerque's Lyle Greenberg took the flopper body off and switched to an altered for this event, still running the "Cone Hunter" name.

(RIGHT) Ageless veteran Johnny West brought out his classic-looking "Plan A" '23-T (near lane) and left first against Lyle Greenberg in the far lane. It was a close race to the finish line, with West tripping the winlight with a very good 6.395 - 217.91 pass. A quicker pass of 6.342 - 211.06 wasn't quite quick enough for Greenberg to overcome West's holeshot.

(LEFT) Warming up the tires in a hurry is Eric Gates in his "Agent Orange" car, winner of this year's Good Vibrations March Meet.

(RIGHT) After an even launch, the "Family Legacy" car of Jim Maroney (far lane) pulled away to a convincing win, with a 6.760 - 197.77 over a trailing 10.63 - 74.79 pass by Eric Gates.

(LEFT) Leaving first by a solid margin was Billy Morris (near lane) as he opened the second round of Nitro Funny Car against Tim Boychuk, in the far lane. That quicker reaction time of Morris made the outcome of the race closer than the e.t.'s would suggest.

(RIGHT) The scoreboards lit up with the first side-by-side funny car passes of the evening, with Boychuk turning on the winlight with a very strong 5.755 - 240.65 that covered Morris's competitive, but second best 5.971 - 236.68 time.

(LEFT) Laying down a solid burnout before his second pass was Geoff Monise in the Quarter-Pounder Camaro.

(RIGHT) It looks like an even launch as Monise (near lane) leaves with James Day in the Speed Sport Omni, but at the finish line, it wasn't even close as Day put up a winning 6.159 - 230.25 to easily handle Monise's early shutoff 6.911 - 140.40 effort.

Before they met in the next match, Johnny West (left) and Jim Maroney (right) performed their ritual burnouts.

With flames flickering high out of the pipes, the "Family Legacy" 23-T Ford of Jim Maroney (far lane) launched against the senior statesman of the class, Johnny 'Plan A' West (near lane).

(LEFT) A good side-by-side launch saw Lyle Greenberg (far lane) leaving just ahead of Eric Gates and his "Agent Orange"-mobile in the near lane.

(RIGHT) The scoreboards told the tale, as Lyle Greenberg put on the WINlight by a wide margin, as his 6.133 - 227.65 easily covered Eric Gates' sub-par 8.096 - 110.22 clocking.

Two views of Robert Winefsky in this pair; burning out on the left and launching the "Nitro Moose" hard on the right.

Lots of "Sheepherder" pictures here, starting with a hard burnout (upper left), moving into the stage lights (upper right), and finally, leaving late against Kevin Knowles in the far lane.

(LEFT) Leaving first and running away with the win was Tim Boychuk (near lane), as his 5.829 - 243.50 easily covered James Day's slowing 7.226 - 130.30 pass. Boychuk's 243.50 mph speed was tops of the night.

(RIGHT) Obviously pleased with the result, Boychuk's "Happy Hour" team celebrated on the starting line.

(LEFT) Igniting the hides before the final pass of the evening, New Mexico's Lyle Greenberg makes some noise and smoke.

(RIGHT) Showing that he's got the "Plan A" dialled in, Johnny West turned on the winlight in the final pairing of the evening. It was close on the scoreboards, but West's 6.191 - 226.73 was just enough to cover Lyle Greenberg's very close 6.230 - 204.32 clocking.

"Relaxing" in the pits, with the motor down to the bare block, the "Blown Cent-Less" team of Ray Stringer is still smiling even though it wasn't the most successful race night for them. And that's a wrap for our coverage of the Tucson Dragway Reunion, featuring the United Nitro Funny Cars and a select group of real blown fuel altereds.

The latest update as of October 7, 2021

It's been way too long between updates, but we'll try to fill in the blanks as we go along. After last weekend's NHRA regional event at Global Technology Raceway (Madison, IL), the Top Alcohol Dragsters and Funny Cars are down to just three more regional and three more national events on the calendar. To complicate matters, three of those six races are occurring this weekend, starting today at The Strip at Las Vegas (West Regional), tomorrow at Dallas (Ennis) (National event), and Saturday at the East Regional at Cecil County Dragway in Rising Sun, MD. We won't know which drivers are competing at the regional events until qualifying results come in, but we do know there's 17 dragsters and 10 funny cars entered for the Texas NHRA FallNationals.

Making it a very tough field in Top Alcohol Dragster is that eight of the Top Ten drivers are entered, and on the Funny Car side, five of the top ten runners are will be in attendance. For the dragsters, it's 14 injected nitro cars versus three blown alcohol entries. Traditionally, conditions at the Texas Motorplex have favoured the nitro burners, as the two quickest blown cars in the field, Shawn Cowie and Joey Severance, have a mixed record at the track. Severance did win the 2018 event, and Cowie was runner-up in 2016, but other than that it's been more round one losses than wins for those two hard charging, high-revving racers.

With the National Championship picture coming into clear focus, the pressure will be on Cowie to stay in the hunt, as he's trailing the current points leader, Rachel Meyer by 119 points. It's a large gap, but as can be seen by the graphic further down the page, it's not quite insurmountable. Only one other competitor, currently in 2nd place, Jackie Fricke, who has an almost impossible path to the championship, as she needs to win both the Dallas and Las Vegas national events, and have Meyer lose in the semi-finals (or earlier) at Dallas.

Below Cowie (currently in 3rd place), everyone else in the dragster top ten has been mathematically eliminated from contention for the title. However, five of those drivers will be trying their best to upset the top three racers and claim the event victory. It will be a very interesting race with hot weather in the forecast, with a high of 93 (F) forecast for tomorrow and Saturday, before dropping to 84 (F) - with some cloud cover - on Sunday. Generally, the hotter the air and track temps, the more it plays into the favour of the blown cars, but the Meyer team has lots of experience at the Motorplex and can be expected to lay down the best e.t.'s and quite possibly wrap up the championship this weekend.

Besides the aforementioned "hitters" there are some incredibly quick A/Fuel cars coming to the Motorplex. Rachel Meyer's team-mate, Julie Nataas sits in the 4th spot in the standings, with three regional wins, but only a quartet of semi-final finishes in national events. She can run with the best though as she has the quickest (5.103) e.t. of the year in Top Alcohol. By comparison, Rachel has "only" a 5.141 to her credit. Two other competitors, #7 in points, Matt Cummings (driving the McPhillips family car, has a best of 5.123 at the recent Dewalt NHRA Carolina Nationals, while #10 in the standings, Robin Samsel is right behind with a season/career best 5.139 clocking. And just a half a tick behind Samsel, are Jackie Fricke (#2) on the table, and Karen Stalba (#5) are tied with identical bests of 5.147.

Contrasting all those super-quick e.t.'s from the injected nitro ranks, are the, unfortunately few, drivers still running supercharged on methanol. The season's quickest is Shawn Cowie, well ahead of all the other blown cars, with a best of 5.178, at the Seattle (West Regional), followed up with back-to-back 5.18's at the Brainered national event. Not one other supercharged has run in the 5-teens, with Joey Severance's 5.232, being nearly half a tenth quicker than James Stevens 5.278 quickest effort. Looking through the archives yields the information that Severance's career best is 5.121 (in 2019), the quickest ever Top Alcohol Dragster pass in history. Right behind, as could be expected, is Shawn Cowie, with a best of 5.151 (also in 2019).

All of the racers mentioned above will be at Dallas this weekend, with the exception of Karen Stalba, who is most likely finished on the national tour this year. It's very possible that everyone may better their season and in some cases, career best e.t.'s. Stay tuned; it's going to be quite a weekend of drag racing.

NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster & Funny Car Standings

Here's a quick explanation of what the graphic means. Each racer is allowed to attend 10 national and 5 regional events and claim points from their best 7 national and 3 regional events. There is nothing stopping a racer from attending more races, but once they've reached their "10 and 5" quotas, their points earning ability is over. To condense the amount of space the graphic takes up on the page, I've eliminated the event locations and simply numbered them 1 - 10 and 1 - 5. Points in red are ones that have been waived, fields with a yellow background are events that have been entered (D = Dallas, LV = Las Vegas, P = Pomona). Fields with a red background are ones that the racer cannot attend before the season ends.

To make sense of all the possible points scenarios, here's the simple (as simple as I can make it) explanation. Points leader Rachel Meyer has a solid lead over her two challengers (remember, everyone else is already eliminated from title contention). However, she has only the Dallas event left to claim points, while Jackie Fricke has Dallas and Las Vegas, and Shawn Cowie has Dallas, plus, presumably, Las Vegas and Pomona left on his schedule.

If Meyer wins this weekend, then the championship is hers. That's the simplest scenario. But if she advances to the final found and loses to Shawn Cowie, then he has the very, very slim chance to wrest the championship away from her. All he would have to do then is win both Las Vegas and Pomona to take it. He could possibly - because the NHRA website does not spell out tiebreaking procedures - take the title with a win at Dallas and a win and a runner-up at the two remaining events. Before we even consider that happening, and it's effect on the points, let's take it one run and one round at a time.

In the Funny Car points battle it's come down to a head-to-head battle between defending national champion Doug Gordon and the current points leader, Sean Bellemeur. Going into this weekend, everyone below them in the standings is already mathematically eliminated from championship contention. It is somewhat surprising that Bellemeur isn't racing this weekend at Dallas, but he does hold the advantage as the season winds down. Interestingly, they both have four national event wins, one runner-up and two semi-finals to their credit. The 21-point difference in the standings is due to Bellemeur's "perfect" three win record in regional events, versus Gordon's two wins and a runner-up.

With Bellemeur's non-attendance at Dallas, the window of opportunity for Gordon to win back-to-back championships is a definite possibility. However, there are some very serious players entered this weekend, with Bob McCosh, Kris Hool, Nick Januik and Brian Hough all in the field. Anyone of them can run with the BETA Motorcycles team, as all of them have run in the 5.40's this year, and with the extra track prep at the Motorplex, it could be a true battle royale.

The latest update as of September 15, 2021

It's been too long since the last update here, and another big race weekend has slipped by, with the next one just around the corner. And on and on it goes until the end of the NHRA drag racing season at Pomona on November 14.... just two months from now.

The latest update as of September 8, 2021

We've got all the photos posted from Mo-Kan Dragways 55th annual "Decade of Wheels" event that ran last weekend, but we're going to take another day to get all the captions and e.t.s/speeds to go with them. We'll start on it this evening, but as with all things at Northern Thunder, it's going to take some time. Complicating that task is the raft of the photos from the Dodge//SRT NHRA U.S. Nationals which just arrived in the old in-box. Just six dozen of them to go through from Friday's qualifying, then later in the week, Sunday's eliminations batch. Then before we have a chance to take a deep breath, the NHRA West Regional from Phoenix's Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park is running this coming weekend, and yes, we've got our SouthWest correspondent, BIG Bob Snyder on hand to capture all the action with his trusty Nikon.

"A" Field - Round #1 Eliminations

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"B" Field - Round #1 Eliminations

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"C" Field - Round #1 Eliminations

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Semi-Finals

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Final Rounds

Continuing her strong run of success in an amazing rookie year on the FCC circuit, Jade Cook (near lane) in her aptly named "Nemesis" took the win over veteran Chris Schneider (far lane) in the Mustang-bodied "Brutus" entry. We haven't seen any of the round sheets yet but Cook's second win of the season, along with two runner-ups may have moved her all the way up the ladder to the #3 position, from the #7 spot she occupied before this event

Finally breaking through for his first win (and first final round) of the season, Shayne Lawson (near lane) in the iconic "Man O' War" Mustang, took the win over the high-country Camaro of the Jackson family, the "High Heaven", wheeled by Keith Jackson. Lawson has most likely moved up two spots in the standings, from his #10 position coming into the weekend

The final race of the night, for the BIG bucks and trophy featured the #1 and #2 racers in the FCC world, with Ken Singleton (near lane) in his very familiar (in almost every final round) "High Risk" entry, facing his toughest opponent all season, Kirk Williams (far lane) in the "Williams Bros. Racing" car, and they put on another great battle that saw the winlight come on in Singleton's lane. In his sixth consecutive final round, Singleton notched his fourth win of the year and lengthened the points lead over his very worthy opposition. Williams took his third runner-up of the year in his fifth final round

WINNERS Circle

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The latest update as of September 7, 2021

We've got the photos from the FUNNY CAR CHAOS event at Mo-Kan Dragway on Saturday. Due to a rain-out on Friday, qualifying was downsized to two sessions, at noon and 2:00 pm, then eliminations got going at 5:00 pm and continued through until the finals around 10:00 pm. Of the 37 racers pre-entered, 34 made at least one qualifying attempt before the fields (A, B, & C) were set for eliminations. Here's the photos from the first qualifying session, with captions to follow this evening. Then tomorrow it will be the eliminations coverage, which unfortunately - to this time of writing - is lacking any e.t.'s or speeds. We can guess at some of the winners and losers in the rounds but until we can see the round by round sheets, we'll just have to make some "educated" guesses as to what happened before the final rounds. Those pictures and details are posted further down the page.

Qualifying Session #1

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Qualifying Session #2 (FINAL)

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The latest update as of September 5, 2021

It's been a rainy weekend at both venues we're following: Friday was a complete rainout at Mo-Kan Dragway for the Funny Car Chaos event, and yesterday saw the rain come in early (and stay late) at Indianapolis, wiping out the final two qualifying sessions for the PRO cars and forcing many of the sportsman eliminators (including Top Alcohol) into a condensed and hurried schedule today. Thankfully, the rain didn't affect qualifying and eliminations yesterday for the FCC crew, as they managed to get in two rounds of qualifying and all three rounds of eliminations, making for a very long day and night for the racers.

Conditions at Indianapolis for the Dodge//SRT NHRA U.S. Nationals are much better this morning as the first round of PRO eliminations is well underway but there is a serious problem with the track, specifically the right lane. In the first round of Top Fuel and Funny Car, not a single car won in that lane. However, despite most of the wins in Pro Stock coming from the left lane, several racers did record competitive times on the dreaded right side of the track. It will be interesting to see what happens when the higher qualified cars come out for the second round of TF and FC racing. Stay tuned!

12:30 PM (EDT) Update:     Without specifically admitting that the right lane is - to put it politely - "junk" - NHRA is doing a complete track re-prep before the second round of PRO and Top Alcohol eliminations. With the large amount of rain that fell on the track yesterday, there may be water under the surface trying to percolate through the track at the transition point (approx. 300' off the starting line) in the right lane. We'll see if the work that's currently underway will solve the problem, or if we'll be back to what happened so often in the old days, a one-lane race track. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, we've got the first pictures from Funny Car Chaos, featuring the final rounds. Much more to come tomorrow and Tuesday. We're still waiting to see the e.t.'s and speeds, but we do know who won (and lost).

Continuing her strong run of success in an amazing rookie year on the FCC circuit, Jade Cook (near lane) in her aptly named "Nemesis" took the win over veteran Chris Schneider (far lane) in the Mustang-bodied "Brutus" entry. We haven't seen any of the round sheets yet but Cook's second win of the season, along with two runner-ups may have moved her all the way up the ladder to the #3 position, from the #7 spot she occupied before this event

Finally breaking through for his first win (and first final round) of the season, Shayne Lawson (near lane) in the iconic "Man O' War" Mustang, took the win over the high-country Camaro of the Jackson family, the "High Heaven", wheeled by Keith Jackson. Lawson has most likely moved up two spots in the standings, from his #10 position coming into the weekend

The final race of the night, for the BIG bucks and trophy featured the #1 and #2 racers in the FCC world, with Ken Singleton (near lane) in his very familiar (in almost every final round) "High Risk" entry, facing his toughest opponent all season, Kirk Williams (far lane) in the "Williams Bros. Racing" car, and they put on another great battle that saw the winlight come on in Singleton's lane. In his sixth consecutive final round, Singleton notched his fourth win of the year and lengthened the points lead over his very worthy opposition. Williams took his third runner-up of the year in his fifth final round

The FUNNY CAR CHAOS points system has a "drop" race system, whereby a racer can waive their lowest points earning race from their season total before the final points standings are determined. If a racer doesn't attend a race, that event becomes their drop race, which helps lower budget racers who can't afford to travel to every race, especially ones far from home. Only one racer in the Top Ten has skipped an event this year, that being Jade Cook and she is currently looking good for at least a Top Five finish. With only the World Finals remaining on the calendar, at San Antonio's Alamo City Motorplex on October 1-2, it's going to be quite a battle for the final placings in the season's points standings.

The latest update as of August 30, 2021

Unless you've got some seriously magnifying spectacles, the tables below are almost impossible to read. So just click on the images and see them in a much larger, and much easier to read format.

NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster & Funny Car Standings

NOTE: Click on the images to see a larger - and easier to read - version of these tables

The latest update as of August 26, 2021

It's been a busy couple of weeks in the drag racing world and we've got some serious catching up ahead of us. Let's get started by showing the latest updated points standings for the NHRA Top Alcohol classes, following the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd, MN last weekend. There was also an Eastern Region event at Epping, NH's iconic New England Dragway, but the final rounds were rained out and won't be completed until mid-September (TAD) and a TBD date (TAFC). Hence, the points highlighted in yellow on the spreadsheets below, which indicates the points have not been awarded yet, nor the event counted towards their maximum allowed.

NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster & Funny Car Standings

NOTE: Click on the images to see a larger - and easier to read - version of these tables

What a difference a few weeks can make, and in Shawn Cowie's case, it wasn't the best of times. Following his big win - over a very small field - at the much-delayed Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals on August 1st, it's been all downhill for him since then. Going into the next event on the NHRA national event calendar, the Menards NHRA Nationals at Topeka, Cowie was tied with Rachel Meyer for the points lead. At a regional event (Great Bend, KS) on the weekend following the Winternationals, Meyer opened up a big lead (85 points) as she won the event.

Then Cowie's first round loss at Topeka, coupled with Meyer's event win, put him 139 points behind in the championship chase. Last weekend, at Brainerd, Shawn had a golden opporunity to close the gap as he met Meyer in the second round of eliminations, but an oh-so-close loss (5.178 - 281.01 to 5.188 - 279.85) that saw a margin of just two feet at the finish line, put an end to his weekend. Despite Meyer losing to eventual event winner Rich McPhillips Jr. in the semi-finals, her lead over Cowie grew to 150 points going into this coming weekend. (More on that later).

A few other racers made moves, both up and down the charts, with McPhillips jumping from #12 all the way to #8 for his first venture into the Top Ten this season. Multi-time national champion (four so far) Joey Severance continued his climb up the ladder with a runner-up finish to move into #5, pushing Jianna Salinas down one notch to #6. Two racers who have at least runner-up points in limbo, Jackie Fricke (#4) and Karen Stalba (#11) will have to wait until the in September to be able to count those points and presumably move up in the standings.

In sharp contrast with all the moves in the dragster standings, the two racers at the top of the TAFC charts, Sean Bellemeur and Doug Gordon didn't compete and didn't see their lead(s) threatened. Even though the #3 racer, Bob McCosh Jr. was runnerup at Brainered, he only closed the gap to 79 points, and both Bellemeur and Gordon have a race or two in hand over McCosh. The biggest move was by #6 Kyle Smith who continued his hot streak, taking his third event win in his last four outings, and continued his climb to the top half of the Top Ten.

Due to the incomplete eliminations at Epping, #5 D. J. Cox Jr. (who has earned at least 64 points at that race) was unable to advance and challenge Kris Hool for the #4 position, but when the Epping final round is run, he could well be in a position to challenge for at least the #3 spot in the final standings. There weren't any moves in the current standings as only THREE, yes THREE Top Alcohol Funny Cars competed at Brainerd, following a 9-car field at Topeka. And the Eastern regional event had just four entries.

One reason for the short fields can be traced to the BIG prize money being offered in the Mid-West Drag Racing Series this year. With $10,000 to win (for an 8-car field) and a further $1,000 for low qualifier, it's tempting for racers to skip the NHRA events when there's an MWDRS race on the same date. Instead of going to Brainerd, Sean Bellemeur, Chris Marshall, Annie Whiteley, and some lower ranked - but serious competitors - Bill Bernard, Mark Billington, and Bryan Brown (all of whom compete regularly at NHRA regional and national events) went to Great Bend, KS to race. Bellemeur currently leads the MWDRS points standings, and all of the racers listed above (except Billington) have attended all three of the Mid-West events contested in 2021.

Finally, for all the Top Alcohol racers, there are not one, not two, but three regional events on tap this coming weekend, with the postponed Eastern regional at Reading, PA, the North Central regional at Bowling Green, KY, and the Western regional at Acton, MT, all happening simulataneously. While racer turnouts at the regional level have been mostly on the small side, and with the U.S. Nationals taking place next weekend, there will almost certainly be short fields at most, if not all, the venues running this week. However, those valuable Lucas Oil points are available for those competing and we're getting to the point in the season where every race could have an effect on the final standings.

We'll do our best to keep you updated throughout the weekend, but with a pair of big birthday parties tomorrow and Saturday and a neighbourhood pot-luck party on Sunday... it might be Monday-ish before we can get all the points updates done. Stay tuned!

The latest update as of August 21, 2021

We've finally got all the photos from the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals posted... unless some more arrive in the inbox, but we've still got quite a few captions to write and fill in the details for some of the later additions to the photo coverage. With lots of racing action taking place this weekend, there won't be enough time to get it all done but stay tuned for all the latest updates to this page. Scroll down the page for the first round Top Fuel & Funny Car photos, and further down for the qualifying coverage.

PRO STOCK - Round #1 Eliminations

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PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE - Round #1 Eliminations

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TOP FUEL - Round #2 Eliminations

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FUNNY CAR - Round #2 Eliminations

PRO STOCK - Round #2 Eliminations

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PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE- Round #2 Eliminations

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TOP FUEL - Round #3 Eliminations

FUNNY CAR - Round #3 Eliminations

PRO STOCK - Round #3 Eliminations

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER - Final Round Eliminations

FUNNY CAR - Final Round Eliminations

TOP FUEL - Final Round Eliminations

The latest update as of August 19, 2021

We're just starting to work on the Sunday (eliminations day) photos from the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals and will start posting them this afternoon and hope to have them all up and captioned by tomorrow. Keep refreshing this page to see the latest updates and stay tuned for our coverage of the NHRA Eastern Regional (Epping, NH) and the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals (Brainerd, MN) over the weekend.

Today's photos from eliminations were taken from a different vantage point as ace lensman Bill Jeffery moved down to the 1000' mark to capture the chutes coming out and engine eruptions as the cars were at maximum speed.

TOP FUEL - Round #1 Eliminations

(LEFT) As the last strains of the national anthem faded into the bedlam of a pair of Top Fuel engines coming to life, the first pair of the day prepared to roll through the water and commence their ritual tire heating exercise. First out was Clay Millican in the "Parts Plus" car, paired with Doug Kalitta (not shown) and it was a good news-bad news day for both racers.BAD with a capital B-A-D for Kalitta, who not only lost with a 4.287-232.19 time, but also charged with his eighth oildown of the season to increase his points penalties to an astronomical 105 points.

The good news for Millican stopped at the finish line as he took the winlight with a 3.843 - 305.49 pass, but as you can see from the photo, did so with numerous cylinders out and some green "stuff" trailing the car. It was the team's sixth oildown of the season and increased their tally to 75 penalty points, but at least they made it to the second round.

(RIGHT) The second pair of Jim Maroney (not shown) and Shawn Langdon saw the heavily favoured "DHL" car take an easy win, despite an early shutoff that rang up a 3.923 - 285.77 on the Auto Club Raceway scoreboards. Best of all: no oil or other debris on the track. PS: Check out the tire distortion as he releases the chutes.

(LEFT) Running all alone in this photo, Antron Brown took the "Giant Killer" honours by dispatching the almost unbeatable Steve Torrence in the biggest upset of the round. After three miserable qualifying attempts that resulted in a "best" of 5.255, Brown and his "Matco Tools" team found the combination and laid down a solid 3.834 - 318.47 to easily cover Torrence's shaking and smoking 4.472 - 197.10 effort.

(RIGHT) The #2 qualifier, Leah Pruett faced the bottom qualifier (Steve Chrisman in his first NHRA race in nearly two years) and did the expected, easily dispatching him with a decent 3.906 - 311.77, to earn the bye run in the second round. Chrisman might have made it a close race to the 660' mark if he hadn't been second (.184 - .082) of the line.

FUNNY CAR - Round #1 Eliminations

(LEFT) The first pair of the first round of Funny Car featured a titanic matchup between defending world champion Matt Hagan (near lane) and 16-time champion John Force in the far lane. Hagan was favoured as he started from the #5 qualifying position, versus Force's #12 spot. Hagan even had the advantage of a lane swap after the cleanup of a huge oildown from the last pair of Top Fuel cars.

And Hagan left first, by slightly more than half a tenth, putting Force at a serious disadvantage. But the big horsepower of Force's machine closed the gap until Hagan's lead at the 660' mark was only 13 thousandths, and at the stripe, Force took the win by a margin of just six thousandths of a second, or barely a nose. A very good candidate for the best race of the day to be sure.

(RIGHT) Could lightning strike twice? The second pair featured #3 qualifier Blake Alexander (not shown) against the never-say-die Jim Campbell and in the second major upset of the round, Campbell took the win by a 4.223 - 289.57 clocking to a losing 4.342 - 248.25 for Alexander when his car headed for the wall just before the 660' mark. That was the first round win for the Jim Dunn team since the February 2020 race in Phoenix. That is truly a very long dry spell.

The latest update as of August 18, 2021

We've got more photos from Pomona, starting with a couple from the pits, the final Top Alcohol qualifying session, and coming up shortly, the second qualifying session for Pro Stock Motorcycle. Then it's on to some nitro burning Top Fuel action.

PRE-RACE PIT ACTION

(LEFT) Before qualifying got underway, it was time to unload the race cars and prep them. In this case it's Ron Capps and the NAPA Auto Parts Dodge.

(RIGHT) Sited next to the Capps pit is the DSR Performance (DSR-sponsored for this race) Dodge of world champion Matt Hagan.

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER & FUNNY CAR - Final Qualifying Session

Seemingly running all by himself, Shawn Cowie pushed the "Mundie's Towing" blown alky dragster to a good - but not better - pass of 5.353 - 273.50 that left him in the #2 spot on the final qualifying list. Holding down the #1 position was Joey Severance, who smoked the tires early and shutoff on what should have been a side-by-side battle for the top spot.

(LEFT) After struggling in his first two attempts (a best of 6.024 - 191.81), defending national champion Doug Gordon laid down a better - but still off his normal pace - 5.720 - 261.83 that moved him up from #8 to #4 on the final qualifying sheet.

(RIGHT) Despite the appearance of speed with the blurred background, both Terry Ruckman (near lane) and Brian Hough (far lane) were coasting after early shutoffs. Ruckman's 9.76 crossed the stripe first against Hough's 10.36 effort. Ruckman held on to the #1 spot with his Friday best of 5.621 - 264.08, while Hough sat in the #3 position with his earlier 5.681 - 260.61 from Friday's first session.

Keep watching this page as we add more photos from Saturday's qualifying at Pomona throughout the day. Tomorrow: Sunday's eliminations. Stay tuned!

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE - Qualifying Session #2

(LEFT) Unmistakable in her bright pink leathers, Angie Smith didn't improve on her earlier 6.901 (good for #6 qualifier) effort and only posted a 6.960 - 186.85, with a possible early shutoff.

(RIGHT) Running alongside Smith in this session was one of the Vance & Hines bikes, with former world champion Eddie Krawiec aboard, and he lost half a tenth from his Friday night 6.903 clocking (which put him #7 in the field) and slowed to a 6.950 - 198.15 to remain in the seven spot.

(LEFT) It looks like Angie Smith (near lane) is trailing Eddie Krawiec (far lane) by nearly a full bike length in this shot.

(RIGHT) But she appears to be closing the gap as they near the finish line, with Smith running just one hundredth slower than Krawiec (6.960 - 6.950). What made the difference is that Krawiec left the line first by four hundredths, with an -.004 redlight to Smith's .035 reaction time.

(LEFT) Making a solid pass to back up his Friday #2 qualifying 6.889 - 195.73 was Scotty Pollacheck, as he turned a 6.957 - 195.73 on his second qualifying attempt.

(RIGHT) Speeding away in the far lane is defending world champion Matt Smith enroute to the quickest pass of the session (6.841- 198.96), only slightly slower than his top qualifying effort from Friday evening (6.806 - 199.20). Trailing in the near lane is Joey Gladstone who slowed nearly a tenth from his earlier #3 qualifying 6.889 pass to a 6.968 - 196.02 on this run.

TOP FUEL - Qualifying Session #2

An intramural battle between the two Kalitta Motorsports drivers featured Shawn Langdon in the near lane, and Doug Kaliita on the far side. Both drivers were looking for much improved results from their rather dismal 6- and 7-second times of Friday evening. We're not sure if the "flames" coming out of Langdon's car are actual flames or raw fuel from dropped cylinders, but nonetheless he got to the finish line first with a decent pass (for the conditions) that just nipped Kalitta's right-there 4.047 - 301.94. We mentioned decent results as the track temperature at the start of the session was 141 degrees and the corrected altitude nearly 4000 ft.

(LEFT) Backing up his Friday evening 4.105 pass, Buddy Hull shut the Terry Haddock Racingcar down early, coasting across the line at 4.310 - 209.88 to show that they had the car dialled in. Sitting in the top half of the field at #6 going into the final qualifier had to be a personal best for Hull and Haddock's team.

(RIGHT) Paired up just like on Friday night, the #1 qualifier, Leah Pruett, in the far lane and the #2 qualifier, Mike Salinas, (near lane) went wheel to wheel down the 1000' strip and both ran in the 3's again. Pruett stopped the timers first at 3.980 - 301.33, while Salinas nearly matched her with a 3.985 - 242.36, despite a very early shutoff. Only one driver, Justin Ashley, outran them in the session, with a 3.917 - 308.43 that put him #3 on the ladder going into the final qualifying session.

FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #2

Still coming to grips with running his "Big Show" Funny Car, Jason Rupert dropped a cylinder at half track, then lost the entire engine in a MAJOR explosion at the finish line. The good news was a career best e.t. and speed at 4.269 - 289.01 that elevated him to the #9 position on the ladder. BUT, the bad news was the concussion from the blowup kayoed the body... and with no spare in the trailer... their weekend was done.

Adding injury to insult, they received an oildown penalty, but one bit of good news came later as they finished qualifying in the #11 position (earning them a first-round date with Alexis DeJoria. EPILOGUE: They weren't able to show for eliminations, but still took home first-round "runnerup" money, that would go some of the way towards a new body.

(LEFT) After a mercifully short cleanup of Rupert's engine debris, racing resumed with Bobby Bode Jr. trying to excape from near the bottom of the field (#15 position), and he did so, but only barely, as his 4.682 - 184.75 moved him up two spots to #13 going into the final session later in the afternoon.

(RIGHT) In the next pair, Paul Lee tried to bump back into the field from the #17 spot, but lost the handle at the 660' mark, and took out the timing block to DQ his run and leave him outside the field going into the last session.

(LEFT) Running alongside John Force (not shown), Bob Tasca III had an early shutoff and failed to improve on Friday's 4.226 pass, carding a 4.372 - 213.23 that left him in the #7 position.

(RIGHT) This was a more or less side-by-side race, but the scoreboards didn't exactly explode with delight, as both Jim Campbell (near lane) and Ron Capps in the far lane, rang up 6-second passes at barely 100 mph speeds. Capps remained in the #4 spot, while Campbell languished in #11 after the second session was complete.

(LEFT) Running a single, as scheduled opponent Jeff Diehl elected to remain in the pits and sit on his #8 spot from Friday, Cruz Pedregon wasted a bunch of nitro and could only put a 5.797 - 119.01 on the scoreboards after losing traction at the 330' mark.

(RIGHT) Things weren't any better for J.R. Todd as spun and shook to a 5.505 - 129.42 to remain in the #6 position. Not shown was Robert Hight in the other lane, who ran even worse in the 6-second zone.

TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR - Round 1 eliminations & PRO STOCK - Final qualifying session

We realize that there's some serious gaps in our coverage, but we're grateful for all the photos that Bill Jeffery has so kindly provided. We've got one shot from the first round of Top Alcohol eliminations, and one pic from the last Pro Stock qualifying session before we move into the final sessions for the Top Fuel and Funny Cars.

(LEFT) It was a relatively easy win in the first round for Doug Gordon, even though he slowed from his qualifying pace, but his 5.800 - 262.44 was more than enough to cover Nick Januik's (not shown) losing 5.977 - 255.87 pass.

(RIGHT) In the last qualifying session, Washington state's Aaron Strong (near lane) headed for the centerline and was forced to shut off to a 7-second time, leaving him in the #10 slot with his earlier 6.634 - 206.86, while Mason McGaha (far lane) kept the pedal down to record a 6.642 - 208.65. His earlier 6.609 - 208.39 left him in the #6 position.

TOP FUEL - Final Qualifying Session

(LEFT) With big flames in the late afternoon and a serious arch in the chassis, Steve Torrence climbed out of the basement (#13 with a 6-second best) all the way to the #2 spot with a very strong 3.808 - 322.27 pass. It was also top speed of the meet.... for a few minutes.

(RIGHT) Following Torrence's great run, and also on a solo as three cars sat in the pits, Brittany Force leapfrogged the entire field, going from #13 to #1 with low e.t. and (a new) top speed of the meet, cranking out an awesome 3.714 - 330.72 in the David Grubnic-tuned Flav-R-Pac entry. That run also earned her a first round bye on Sunday morning.

The "DHL" car of Shawn Langdon had the flames up high at the 660' mark, but they went down before the finish line as shown by his 3.854 - 292.01 numbers. Despite the early shutoff, he still climbed one notch on the ladder, from #6 to #5 in the field.

(LEFT) The last two pairs of the final session started with Doug Kalitta (near lane) facing (in the far lane) Justin Ashley and he made a solid move in the right direction, cutting nearly two tenths off his earlier 4.047 best, cranking out a 3.855 - 311.41 to advance one spot on the ladder (#7 to #6). Ashley also made an improvement, albeit smaller, as his 3.899 - 310.27 just slightly eclipsed his previous 3.917 clocking and left him in the #7 position going into Sunday's eliminations.

(RIGHT) The Top Fuel show closed with Leah Pruett (near lane) in her sponsor of the week "ICE Spiked" entry, matched against the "Travers Tools" clad car of Mike Salinas (partially obscured in the far lane). Both ran in the 3's again, but only Salinas improved as he dipped into the 70's with an excellent 3.790 - 318.09 to move from #4 to #3 on the final list. Pruett's good 3.905 - 307.79 left her in the #2 spot with her Friday night 3.780 effort.

FUNNY CAR - Final Qualifying Session

(LEFT) With the sun setting as the final qualifying session got underway, the first pair out of the lanes featured Tim Wilkerson, who was sitting in a very precarious #14 position with a best of 5.458 to his "credit". He didn't get all the way to the finish line under power, but kept the flames high long enough to move up three spots to a safe #11 spot on the sheet, with a timeslip.

(RIGHT) Next up were Paul Lee (near lane) and Bobby Bode Jr. in the far lane. Bode was off the throttle at half track and only clocked a 4.950 - 155.63, as he dropped one spot on the ladder to #15, earned with an earlier 4.682 pass. Lee made the most of his last chance, climbing from outside of the field all the way to the #7 spot with a very nice 4.045 - 311.85 result.

(LEFT) Running by herself as scheduled opponent Jim Campbell pulled out of line when team owner Jim Dunn saw that they couldn't be bumped, Alexis DeJoria made her last ditch attempt a good one as she moved from #18 to #6 and a first round matchup with a lower qualified car. Her run wasn't earth-shaking but the 4.021 - 313.73 was the third quickest and fastest of the session.

(RIGHT) Another solo run was in the cards for Ron Capps as Jeff Diehl decided to save the parts and nitro and sit on his earlier 4.259, and Capps made the most of it, jumping from a good #4 to an excellent #1 with a very strong 3.941 - 321.35 to show that the track and atmospheric conditions were finally coming around.

Running in the second-to-last pair, Robert Hight took his best shot and moved past Blake Alexander into the #2 position with a very good 3.953 - 323.27 run. Trailing in the far lane was partially obscured J.R. Todd, as he lifted early to keep it in his lane and stopped the clocks at 4.234 - 265.38, nearly two tenths slower than his early #7 qualifying 4.044 pass.

The latest update as of August 17, 2021

Here we go with the first batch of Pomona photos from the Friday PRO qualifying session. Remember to click on the small images to see the larger versions.

PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE - Qualifying Session #1

(LEFT) The first session of Pro Stock Motorcycle saw Joey Gladstone make the first sub-6.90 pass of the day, a 6.889 - 195.73, that held onto the #1 spot until late in the session, as he dropped to the #3 spot at the end.

(RIGHT) Running nearly as quick as Gladstone, Angie Smith made a good start to her weekend, with a solid 6.901 - 195.42 to place #5 in the order.

After contending for the points lead early in the season, Scotty Pollacheck was looking to rebound from three straight first-round losses, and made a good move in that direction, with a 6.865 - 196.64 pass that left him in the #2 spot at the end of the session.

FUNNY CAR - Qualifying Session #1

Making his third appearance of the season, California's Jeff "The Surfer" Diehl put some big flames out of his "Real Deal-RATT" sponsored car and despite an early shutoff, clocked in at 4.259 - 272.23 to sit in the #8 position after the first round of qualifying

Still out there racing after six decades in the sport, "Big" Jim Dunn's car sports the colours of one of his long-time sponsors, the iconic "MoonEyes" brand. With Jim Campbell behind the wheel, the car made a good early move but the candles went out early, stopping the clocks at 4.340 - 216.90, good enough for #9 on the qualifying sheet at the end of the day.

Trying hard to chase down Blake Alexander as they headed to the top end, the Dunn Racing car was bathed in green light as it neared the 660' lights, while Alexander opened the gap on Jim Campbell. While Campbell shut off early to a 4.340, Alexander kept the pedal down for the first 3-second run of the weekend, a very good 3.961 - 318.44 that gave them the #1 qualifying spot for the day.

Trying hard to match Alexander's great pass, Cruz Pedregon pushed the "Snap-On" Dodge to an almost as good 3.967 - 317.34 to slide into the #2 spot on the charts, as the team worked hard to rebound from consecutive first-round losses after their comeback victory at Norwalk in June. That was his first victory on the national tour in three years.

This was far from the quickest or fastest pair of the session, as Alexis DeJoria (far lane) smoked the tires right off the line and coasted to a 7-second clocking. Not having much better luck was Tim Wilkerson (near lane) as he lit 'em up shortly after this photo, and also coasted across the line with a 6-second timeslip.

The next pair down both kept the throttle to the finish line, with Ron Capps (far lane) opening a gap on J.R. Todd (near lane) and stopping the clocks first with a very good 3.971 - 318.69, good for the #4 position, while Todd ran a bigger speed, but bigger e.t. too, timing in at 4.044 - 322.04 and landed in the #6 spot on the first session sheet.

(LEFT) Running almost side-by-side at this point, the CEO of JFR Racing (aka: The Boss), John Force in the near lane, kept pace with the JFR President, Robert Hight (far lane) until he gave up the fight after pedalling his way to a 4.552 - 283.67 timeslip.

(RIGHT) Running by himself after the Boss shut off, Robert Hight just missed - by one thousandth of a second - taking the top spot on the sheet with a very strong 3.962 - 327.11 pass that also took Top Speed honours for the session.

(LEFT) The last pair of Funny Cars didn't card 3-second passes, but it was a good side-by-side race until just past the 660' mark, when Matt Hagan (near lane) in the "DSR Dodge Hellcat" pulled away from Bob Tasca III (far lane), as the "Motorcraft" Mustang lost traction and shut off to a 4.226 - 225.56 clocking. Hagan narrowly missed dipping into the "3's" with a 4.009 - 312.13 that put him #5 on the qualifying list going into Saturday.

(RIGHT) Sporting the colours of the last sponsor ("Travers Tools") for the Johnson Brothers Top Fuel team of 1996, Mike Salinas (near lane) pushed the "Scrappers Racing" entry to a solid 3.840 - 308.35 time, good for #2 on the sheet behind the quicker and faster Leah Pruett (far lane), who stopped the clocks with the low e.t. of the night at 3.780 - 321.88 to take the top spot on the Top Fuel board.

In case you're wondering why there's only one Top Fuel picture from Friday night's lone qualifying session... there was the side-by-side 3-second pair shown above, then Buddy Hull (driving Terry Haddock's car) ran a 4.105 - 278.69.... then the next "quickest" car ran 5.158 at 136 mph. Does that answer the question of why there aren't more pictures. With our photographer down at about the 660 ft. mark, most of the cars were shut off and coasting well before then. Tomorrow has to be better. Stay tuned and find out.

The latest update as of August 16, 2021

Here's the first two pictures from our coverage of the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals held two weeks ago at Pomona's Auto Club Raceway. It's the top two performers in Top Alcohol Dragster; a great way to start our coverage, courtesy of Bill Jeffery. There's many, many more to come over the next few days.

(LEFT) Making a Friday qualifying pass, Oregon's Joey Severance took the top spot after two of the three sessions, with a great - for the conditions - 5.325 - 270.21. That was a major improvement over his tire-shaking, shutoff pass of 7.489 in the first round of qualifying.

(RIGHT) Holding down the second spot was perennial national contender, British Columbia's Shawn Cowie who followed up a good 5.384 - 271.95 with an even better 5.340 - 275.22 to hold down the second spot on the ladder.

NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster & Funny Car Standings

In the two weeks between the Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals (Pomona, CA) and this past weekend's Menard's NHRA Nationals (Topeka, KS), there's also been two regional events (Great Bend, KS & Indianapolis, IN) and all those races have resulted in some major changes in the Top Alcohol national points standings.

NOTE: Click on the images to see a larger - and easier to read - version of these tables

We've just started working on a huge pile of photos from the Winternationals, courtesy of our good friend, Bill Jeffery, who is planning to attend the U.S. Nationals on Labor Day weekend. In the meantime, we'll be posting all of his great work from Pomona as soon as we can find enough time to do so. As always: stay tuned!

The latest update as of August 10, 2021

NHRA Heritage Series Points Standings

Following the completion of last weekend's 50th Anniversary Nightfire Nationals at Boise, ID's Firebird Raceway, we've compiled the updated points standings from the results page of Firebird Raceway's website, the coverage on Competition Plus, and the points structure page on NHRA's website. Until the NHRA points page is updated (and we can cross-check our tabulations), please consider these numbers as unofficial.

The latest update as of August 4, 2021

The site will be very slow on updates for the next ten days due to family visiting from Eastern Canadian. It's going to be a very busy time and we just won't have time to do much - if anything - in the way of updates until the middle of the month. Enjoy the summer weather and be sure to check out these pages later in the month for all the stuff we've been putting off doing while entertaining guests. Cheers!

The latest update as of August 2, 2021

It's my birthday today (71st... and thankfully, still counting!) so the update will be short and concise. The long-delayed Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals was completed over the weekend and we've got the latest national points standings for the Top Alcohol Dragsters and Funny Cars. And that's about it for today.

NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster & Funny Car Standings

NOTE: Click on the images to see a larger - and easier to read - version of these tables

The biggest change in the T/AD standings saw Shawn Cowie move into a tie for the lead with Rachel Meyer. Cowie took the event win at the Winternationals, and leapfrogged over idle racers, Jackie Fricke and Julie Nataas to the top rung on the ladder. Also making a big move was Cowie's final round opponent, Joey Severance who jumped all the way from #10 to #5 on the basis of his runner-up finish. Below the Top Ten, west coast racers, Casey Grisel improved from the #17 spot to #14, and Kim Parker moved into the #18 position.

The season-long battle between the defending TA/FC champion, Doug Gordon and former two-time champion, Greg Bellemeur continued, with Gordon picking up second round loser points - certainly not the result he was looking for at the Winternationals, to move ahead of Bellemeur by just 32 points. The early exit for the Gordon team at a race that didn't have Bellemeur in the pits could be a key factor in the championship battle at the end of the season. Event runner-up Brian Hough gained a bunch of points but it wasn't enough to catch #6 Nick Januik (first round loser), who held the #6 spot despite his early departure from eliminations.

The Winternationals winner, Terry Ruckman moved from virtually nowhere in the standings into the #20 spot on the list, and former champion Shane Westerfield moved from #18 to the #11 position, just one point shy of the Top Ten. If he could have advanced to the semi-finals, he'd be in that top group.

The latest update as of July 29, 2021

It's not going to be the largest number of competitors at a Winternationals - in fact, far from it - but there will be nearly full fields in the PRO categories. Leading the way will be Funny Car, with 18 entrants, followed by Pro Stock (16), Pro Bike (15), and trailing the rest, "The Kings of The Sport" aka: Top Fuel, with just 13 competitors. The numbers get even worse when we move down to Top Alcohol Dragster (just EIGHT), and Funny Car (NINE).

Whatever happened to all the west coast alky racers? Admittedly, there are a number of factors contributing to the decline: COVID-19 obviously, and the impediments it's put on travel, especially of the cross-border variety, and the uncertainty affecting the economy and people's and company's willingness to spend money on non-essential activities. We can only hope that 2022 sees a return to something approaching a "normal" (or new normal) way of life.

In Top Alcohol Dragster, with just eight drivers competing, there are only two Top Ten racers in competition at Pomona. Both running supercharged alcohol, it's Shawn Cowie, and arch-rival Joey Severance. With the last minute withdrawal of Mike Austin, there's only three alky cars competing against five injected nitro racers. The favourite to take the crown is obviously three-time defending Winternats champion, Cowie, as his Mundie's Towing team has been absolutely dominant at Pomona over the past six years. During that span they've made it to the final round five times, winning four of them.

Cowie's fortunes haven't been so fortunate at the other Pomona event, the traditional season-ending Auto Club NHRA Finals, as in the five years from 2015-2019 (last year's event was cancelled) he's "only" won twice and made the semi-finals once. However, in the eleven total Pomona races since 2015, he's notched six wins, and a runner-up and has tallied a winning percentage of .861 , with 31 round wins against just five losses. That's quite a record and that's why he's the odds-on favourite to continue that record this weekend. With the wealth of track and atmospheric conditions knowledge that ace tuner Norm Grimes has amassed since coming onboard with Cowie in the mid-2010's, it's going to be a tall task for his competitors to beat him.

Moving on to Top Alcohol Funny Car, we've got a nine-car field, which means four rounds of racing, with a bye run in each round leading up to the final. If NHRA follows their normal elimination schedule for the alcohol cars, it will mean three rounds on Sunday (as opposed to two for the dragsters) in a very compressed time frame of just three hours. In practice, that means less than 90 minutes between rounds, which is a walk in the park for the pro teams, but in a "sportsman" category that requires heavy maintenance between runs, it's going to be a tough Sunday afternoon for the teams.

Eight of the nine drivers entered are from the West Coast (one from Alaska, one from Washington, one from Oregon, one from Nevada, and four from California), while just (Terry Ruckman) resides east of the Rocky Mountains (Grand Junction, CO). Of that group, three are currently in the Top Ten, with defending national champion Doug Gordon, sitting in second place, just ten points behind leader Sean Bellemeur, who is not attending the Winternationals. The #6 (Nick Januik) and #7 (Brian Hough) racers are well back in the standings, and only Januik has a chance to move up the points table.

Of the rest of the field, only former national champion (2017) Shane Westerfield is a serious threat to the category leaders, but he does have a chance to make a big jump up the standings from his current #17 spot, and move into the Top Ten again with a late round finish. A real darkhorse in the form of Mike Doushgounian, tuned by Bob Miner, is capable of making some serious noise and could provide an upset... or two... before the tire smoke settles on Sunday afternoon.

The latest update as of July 27, 2021

NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster & Funny Car Standings

NOTE: Click on the images to see a larger - and easier to read - version of these tables

Making the biggest move in the Top Alcohol Dragster standings over the weekend was Rachel Meyer as she jumped from a third-place tie with Shawn Cowie to the top of the standings with her win at the Heartland Motorsports Park event at Topeka, KS. Her final round competitor, Jared Dreher made an even bigger move, from somewhere in the 30's to a tie for 21st place. Other racers advancing were semi-finalists James Stevens, from #8 to #5, and moving into the Top Ten for the first time this season, Robin Samsel, climbing from #11 to #8 in the standings.

With just a five-car field at Topeka, that included just two Top Ten runners, there wasn't as much movement in the Top Alcohol Funny Car standings. Event runner-up, Bob McCosh Jr. gained 21 points, but remained well back of #2 Doug Gordon, still 74 points behind him. Winning the race was Kyle Smith, who leaped from #19 into the Top Ten, at #10 in the standings. Despite a surprising first-round exit, Chris Foster climbed from #15 to #11, just two points behind Smith on the table. One other Top Tenner, Kris Hool lost in the semi-finals and waived his points to remain in the #5 position.

The latest update as of July 21, 2021

NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster & Funny Car Standings

NOTE: Click on the images to see a larger - and easier to read - version of these tables

The weekend event at National Trail Raceway attracted a small-ish field of just eight Top Alcohol Dragsters, but it did result in some movements in the points standings. Despite an untimely first round exit, Julie Nataas inched closer to the points leader Jackie Fricke (who was idle). The gap is now just three points between the two racers. The biggest move upwards was Jasmine Salinas who won her first NHRA regional event and moved into a tie for sixth place (with James Stevens) as the McPhillip's-tuned "Scrappers Racing" team is definitely making some big steps forward.

Falling out of the Top Ten was Matthew Cummings, who is only running at national events in the McPhillips family owned hot rod, as Rich Jr. moved into the cockpit and took the runner-up spot at Columbus, in the process moving up one spot to #12 in the standings. Also advancing one notch, to #11, was semifinalist Robin Samsel.

The BIG news in Funny Car was the new Number One, as Sean Bellemeur won the National Trail event over a short five-car field. In the process he moved past the season-long leader, Doug Gordon by ten points. It looks like it's going to be quite a battle for Gordon to retain his 2020 National championship over the two-time champion from 2018 & 2019, Bellemeur. Another big move saw Tony Bogolo jump into the Top Ten in the #9 spot, bumping Dan Pomponio down to #12. The event runnerup, Chip Beverett made the biggest gain as he vaulted all the way from # to #11, just twelve points out of the Top Ten.

This weekend there's a Central Regional event at Topeka's Heartland Raceway Park and we'll have the points updated next Monday following the completion of the event. Then it's on to Pomona the following weekend for the long-delayed Lucas Oil NHRA Winternationals as the Western Swing wraps up.

The latest update as of July 16, 2021

It seems like a simple enough equation: you take an 11,000 HP NHRA Big Show-style engine out of a full-on Top Fuel Dragster and plunk it in a 1953 Studebaker. Then what would you call it? How about "StudeZilla"? And that's exactly what Scott Palmer and his band of nitro loonies did. The car in question is a specially built Larry Jeffers Pro Mod chassis designed to handle about.... 5000 HP. So what happens when you double that ouput and add a little more for good/bad measure? Take a look at the following sequence of pictures and draw your own conclusions.

And if one Top Fuel Pro Mod isn't enough, then just double the fun, the excitement, the chances for some seriously disastrous mechanical carnage by adding a second car in the form of J.R. Sandlian's Chevelle-bodied BAD Attitude machine. Just line them up side-by-side, flash the ambers and let the FUN begin! Check out our (almost) exclusive coverage of this once in a lifetime (hopefully!) event here courtesy of our fearless correspondent, BIG Bob Snyder.

Here's the photos; we'll fill in captions tomorrow

Outlaw Pro Mod Qualifying

(LEFT) Looking great in an early 'Vette, is Brandon Lewis

Round One Eliminations

(LEFT) In the right lane in the '65 Mustang is Jim Roberts

(RIGHT) In the right lane is Wayne Roberts in the late-model Corvette

(LEFT In the first round of eliminations, it's Brandon Sandlian in the left lane, and Jim Roberts in the right lane.

(RIGHT) Eventual event winner Eddie Rogers in the "Chevelle from Hell"

Semi-Finals

(LEFT) In the near lane, it's Eddie Rogers in the "Chevelle from Hell" who took an easy win and a berth in the final round when his opponent, Alton Holsted in the flaming black 'Vette (far lane) blew up BIG TIME!

(RIGHT) After a nearly one hour cleanup, it's Brandon Sandlian in the "Junkyard Stude" '53 Studebaker in the near lane, and on the far side it's an unidentified black early model 'Vette.

Posing in the Winners Circle is Eddie Rogers and crew with the "Chevelle from Hell"

The latest update as of July 14, 2021

Before we start the Funy Car Chaos report, we've got to wish a very happy - albeit slightly belated - 100th birthday to the "Cam-Father" Ed Iskenderian. He's still very much alive and so is his cam grinding business that's still turning out some great products. The last cam I ever bought was a custom grind for my Top Alcohol car. It got a little beat up when we hydrauliced the engine... but that's beside the point now. Best wishes for another great year for Mr. Iskenderian.

Qualifying Session #3 (FINAL)

(LEFT) Leading off the final session was Keith Jackson in the family's iconic "High Heaven" Camaro. This was a special pass for the team as they had a large banner on the side of the car memorializing the life of the recently passed owner of one of the FCC series major sponsors, Randy Ranew of the Red Line Shirt Club. After failing to get down the track on Friday, Keith kept the pedal down to the tune of 4.247 - 171.04 to earn a slot in the "B" field. Unfortunately, the run did enough damage to the engine that they had to pass on eliminations and let an alternate into their spot.

(RIGHT) After a couple of so-so runs on Friday, North Dakota's Jim Chase stepped up big in his "Wicked Quick" '55 Chevy, blasting into the middle of the "A" field with a very strong 3.888 - 187.03 that held up for the #4 spot on the final ladder.

(LEFT) Making a huge leap up the ladder was Mary Reep in her "Grim Reeper" entry, vaulting from #22 all the way to the #8 spot (and a first round match against the low qualifier) with a strong pass of 4.105 - 144.60, despite an early shutoff.

(RIGHT) A furious burnout didn't help Chris Schneider as he wasn't able to improve on his Friday best of 4.471 - 157.18 in the "Brutus" Mustang and saw himself fall from #9 to #15 on the final list, putting him near the bottom of the "B" field.

(LEFT) Still trying to come to grips with his conversion from an open-bodied Altered to a Funny Car, Scott Pareso finished Friday with a best of 4.756 - 146.82, before stepping up to a 4.417 - 157.67 in the last session on Saturday. It moved his "Altered Reality" from just outside, to just inside the "B" field in the #14 position.

(RIGHT Making his Funny Car Chaos debut, another convert from the Rocky Mountain Superchargers group, Tony Arcuri in his "Firefighter" had no luck on Friday, and very little on Saturday, "improving" from a 20-second time to a 15-second pass in his final attempt. While the car could do a good burnout, problems in the Lenco drive were the likely culprit causing the lack of motion when it left the starting line.

Closing out qualifying was Mike Newkirk in his "Disturbed" entry and he improved slightly from Friday's 3.936 - 188.44 best
to a 3.871 - 191.00 clocking that kept him in the #3 position in the "A" field.

Eliminations - Round #1

The only change made to the ladders after qualifying was the withdrawal of #11 qualifier Keith Jackson due to breakage, which moved everyone below him up one spot. The biggest beneficiary of that change was series debutante Alex Barker who moved from #25, and out of the show, into the last spot in the "C" field. That change also put Daniel Butherus in hot water as he moved from the top of the "C" field into the bottom of the "B" field, and a first round match against Dave Gallegos, the top qualifier in that group.

"A" Field

(LEFT) Kicking off eliminations were the #3 and #6 qualifiers, Mike Newkirk (right lane) and Shayne Lawson in his beautiful "Man O' War" entry (left lane), and they put on a great side-by-side 3-second race. Despite a rather late light (.153 to .106), Newkirk turned on the scoreboards first with his best of the weekend 3.823 - 191.41 to overcome Lawson's early lead and slightly slower 3.948 - 185.72 effort.

(RIGHT) Here's a closer look at "Disturbed" as it passes our photographer enroute to his first round win.

(LEFT) The next pair out of the lanes featured the dominating (two wins and two runnerups in the last four races) Kirk Williams, and it looked like he was still on a roll with a great (.037) light, but the win streak snapped early and he slowed to a losing 5.270 - 127.08 against opponent Mary Reep.

(RIGHT) Here's a closer look at the "Grim Reeper" as Mary pushed the loud pedal hard to the tune of a winning 3.906 - 178.29 for her first round win and best pass ever in Funny Car Chaos competition.

(LEFT) Catching everyone's attention with a wheels-up (way up!) launch, Chuck Loftin made a hard charge in his "Motivation" entry (left lane), but was forced to pedal to get the errant Mustang under control and the resulting 4.491 - 145.35 wasn't enough to cover Jim Chase's good-enough-for-the-win 4.307 - 176.89 effort in the right lane. Chase's win put him into semifinals, against Reep, with Mary having her choice of lanes.

(RIGHT) Closing out the round was the co-points leader, Ken Singleton (right lane) matched up with many time opponent Nick Poloson (right lane) and it turned into another runaway victory for the "High Risk" team as Singleton turned on the winlight with his best run of the weekend (to this point) 3.763 - 202.16 to hold off the good try 4.145 - 151.82 of Poloson. The win set up a semifinal match between Singleton and Newkirk, with Singleton holding lane choice.

"B" Field

Moving down to the second eight, FCC championship contender Tom Furches (right lane) left second but finished first, as his (.150 to .066) launch didn't stop him from taking the win with a 4.143 - 171.17 over Nick Johnson's (left lane) trailing 4.498 - 153.79 clocking.

(LEFT) Cutting the best light of the round (.027) wasn't enough to help Scott Pareso (right lane) get to the finish line first, as his 4.461 - 156.96 fell to the much quicker 4.213 - 170.20 of Dustin Bradford. Pareso's six hundredths advantage at the start still left nearly two tenths behind at the stripe.

(RIGHT) Another, closer view of the "Altered Reality" entry.

(LEFT) Blazing the hides on the burnout, Top Ten (in the points standings) runner Daniel Butherus really put the whip to his big-block Chevy powered "Rat-A-Tude" flopper.

(RIGHT) When the ambers flashed, Butherus (right lane) jumped out to an early lead over opponent Dave Gallegos (left lane) as the "Nitro Clown" was more than a little late on the launch (.205 to the .074 for Butherus). And Gallegos kept the pedal down all the way to the finish line, stopping the clocks with his best ever 3.896 - 180.07... for the LOSS.

As explained in previous Funny Car Chaos reports, there is a breakout rule in effect for the "B" and "C" fields, that fixes an index two tenths of a second below the low qualifying e.t. for that field. In this case, Gallegos was low qualifier at 4.230, setting the index at 4.030. Obviously his 3.896 was far below the mark, disqualifying him and advancing Butherus to the semifinals.

Closing the round was the pairing of Chris Schneider (right lane) against the "Wicked Weekender" entry of Steve Vang. The race was over right at the starting line as the "Brutus" was actually broken (blower problems) and limped to the starting line before shutting off when the green came on. Easily advancing to the semifinals and a match against Tom Furches, Vang put down a solid 4.290 - 164.65 for the win.

"C" Field

Finishing the first round, the "C" field - which is looking like a regular feature at Funny Car Chaos events this year due to the continuing excellent car counts - put on a good show for the spectators.

(LEFT) Even though it looks like a major holeshot, Andy Mears (right lane) didn't leave that much quicker than opponent Alex Barker (in his father Tod's "Back in Black" Corvette). Barker's .561 reaction was worse than Mears' .453 light, but the gap opened quickly as Barker's 4.759 - 142.72 was no match for the winning 4.525 - 135.34 put down by the "Dragon Slayer" '57 Chevy.

(RIGHT) Filling the frame is Matt Nissen in his familiar "Runnin' Down a Dream" as it appears that he might be on a solo pass. However, looks can be deceiving as he left first in a bit of a snoozing contest (.388 to .465) over the not shown Jordan "Ballew Thunder" Ballew. Ballew's quicker 4.489 - 155.98 pass held off Nissen's second best 4.634 - 140.01 for a less than two car length victory.

(LEFT) In what became a continuing pattern for the "C" field, another pair of less than stellar lights initiated this match, with Jade Cook (left lane) leaving second with a .614 (!) light to Tod Barker's (right lane) slightly "better" .498 launch. Looking closely at the photo shows that Barker launched crooked and got off the throttle early, crossing the finish line with a 5.198 - 106.89 time. Cook's winning numbers were 4.461 - 155.17 that put her into the semifinals with lane choice over Jordan Ballew.

(RIGHT) The final race of the first round saw a pair of Chevys, a Vega in the right lane driven by Mike Buchanan paired up with the Monza of Justin Herbst in the left lane. Buchanan turned on the winlight with a quicker 4.735 - 146.87, while Herbst turned on the redlight, throwing away a 4.816 - 148.17 pass.

Eliminations - Round #2

"A" Field

A friendly greeting of competitors in the staging lanes preceded the semi-final match between Mary Reep (left) and Jim Chase (right).

(LEFT) Doing her job on the starting line, Mary Reep (far lane) left first by a margin of .032 to Jim Quick's (near lane) .066 light. But her lead was used up quickly as Chase laid down his best ever e.t. in Funny Car Chaos competition, 3.830 - 189.47 to leave Reep's early shutoff 4.330 - 136.16 far behind at the finish line.

(RIGHT) The other pairing in the semifinal saw Mike Newkirk (far lane) leaving first - by a bunch - but only due to a redlight (-.079), and he shutoff soon after this photo to a losing 6.561 - 76.80 time. Taking the automatic win, but not taking it easy, Ken Singleton (near lane) tickled the tuneup a little more and turned his best run of the weekend, 3.743 - 203.07 to garner lane choice honors in the final against Chase.

"B" Field

It's never a good sign to see the crew pushing a car back to the starting line after the burnout, and in this case it was an accidentally shutoff Tom Furches, as his "Made in America" car bowed out before getting a chance to stage in the semifinal.

(LEFT) Taking advantage of his opponent's plight, Steve Vang made a full pass, stopping the clocks at 4.222 - 166.36 in the hope of earning lane choice for the final round.

(RIGHT) In a bizarre twist, Daniel Butherus took a solo pass as his opposition, Dustin Bradford, sat behind the water box, unable to fire his "American Dream". Butherus tried hard, but his 4.621 - 152.49 fell far short of Vang's e.t. and left the "Wicked Weekender" team with lane choice for the final.

"C" Field

(LEFT) Another bye run? Yes, that was the case as Andy Mears ran alone as Mike Buchanan failed to make it to the starting line. Mears responded with his best run of the weekend, finally escaping the 5.50-zone and laying down a 4.443 - 157.73 to move into the final round.

(RIGHT) Joining Mears in the "C" field final was the surprise of the 2021 season, Jade Cook, (near lane) as she advanced to her third final in her last four races with a 4.414 - 155.66 pass that easily handled the early shutoff run of Jordan Ballew (far lane), who trailed with a 5.469 - 87.72 timeslip. Cook's run was her best of the weekend and snatched lane choice away from Mears by just three hundredths.

Eliminations - Final Rounds

With the sun set and the track lights on, it was final round time and the races for the big prizes and glory, starting with the "C" field and working upwards to the "A" final.

With two evenly matched cars it might become a battle of reaction times with Andy Mears (near lane) in his "Dragon Slayer" '57 Chevy taking on the hands-down "FCC Rookie of The Year" Jade Cook in her "Nemesis" (far lane). It was a close race, with Mears leaving first by just .014 and holding the lead all the way to the finish, turn on the winlight with a 4.331 - 161.64 over Cook's close 4.386 - 156.47 time. The margin at the finish line was just over a car length as Mears notched his second consecutive "C" field win, moving him up to the #5 spot in the points standings.

After battling hard all weekend, and running consistently in the 4.20's to advance to his first final round of the season, Steve Vang (near lane) in his "Wicked Weekender" fell - on a holeshot - to the hard running "Rat-A-Tude" of Daniel Butherus (far lane), as Butherus left first first by a full tenth of a second and made his 4.358 - 163.22 stand up for the win over Vang's quicker 4.301 - 161.87 effort. Like in the "C" final, it was barely a car length between the cars at the stripe as Butherus won his second race of the 2021 season and moved into a tie for third place in the FCC standings.

Then came the race that everyone had been looking forward to, for the big prize going to the winner of the "A" final. In the near lane, Ken Singleton (near lane) left hard in his "High Risk" car and outran the very worthy challenger from North Dakota, Jim Chase, (far lane) in his aptly name "Wicked Quick" '57 Chevy. Singleton turned up the wick just a tad and made his best pass of the weekend at 3.734 - 204.92 (top speed of the meet) to cover Chase's off-pace 6.844 - 88.25 losing effort.

Singleton had already broken the tie for the points lead with Kirk Williams earlier in the evening, but the event win opened the gap to a 30 point lead for Singleton. This was also Ken's fifth consecutive final, with three wins to his credit... so far.

Here's the updated Funny Car Chaos points standings following the Kansas International Dragway event at Wichita, KS.

NOTE: Click on the image to see a larger - and easier to read - version of this table

Data courtesy of FUNNY CAR CHAOS - Thanks Chris Graves!

The latest update as of July 13, 2021

Yes, we have pictures from the latest FUNNY CAR CHAOS event, held last weekend at Kansas International Dragway, as the feature attraction at their 58th annual Summer Nationals. These are shots from the first qualifying session, held early on Friday evening. Many, many more to follow as the day progresses. Captions will be filled in as soon as the first day's qualifying photos (two sessions) are posted. Stay tuned! We don't have access to the first round qualifying results, as the cumulative results of the two sessions are posted at the end of Friday's qualifying.

(LEFT) Leading off our coverage is Jade Cook in her "Nemesis" entry and she continued to impress with a solid run from her UNblown (nitrous BBC) entry, posting a best for the day of 4.670 - 128.79 to provisionally place her in the #15 spot, near the bottom of the "B" field.

(RIGHT) Following a hard charging burnout, the "Ballew Thunder" Camaro of Jordan Ballew put down a slightly off-pace 4.870 - 148.17 that left him well down the qualifying sheet in the #20 position.

(LEFT) The flamed GTO "Back in Black" is now running under new ownership. It started life as an NHRA Nitro Nostalgia Funny Car run by Dennis La Charite, then passed along to Funny Car Chaos runner Lynn Logue, and fittingly enough is now running as part of a two-car "Back in Black" team of Tod and Alex Barker. Father Tod is now driving the GTO while his son Alex wheels the familiar black Corvette. His best of the day 4.812 - 126.12 placed him in the #18 slot on the list.

(RIGHT) Continuing his perfect attendance record (all six events on the FCC calendar so far), Shayne Lawson ran hard to a very good 4.106 - 146.10 pass (note the early shutoff speed), in his Mustang-bodied "Man O' War" entry, putting him in the #4 spot and solidly in the "A" field going into the final qualifier on Saturday afternoon.

(LEFT) Laying down some rubber before his run, Justin Herbst made a decent pass of 4.731 - 147.88 in his short wheelbase Monza-bodied "Scorpion". The run put him in the #16 position and gave him a toehold on the last spot in the "B" field.

(RIGHT) Longtime FCC racer Chris Schneider wheeled the "Brutus" Mustang to a solid 4.471 - 157.18 that left him near the top of the "B" field in the #9 position after Friday's two sessions.

(LEFT) Not making much of an impact in the first qualifying session, Mary Reep struggled to a best of 5.065 - 91.28 on Friday in her "Grim Reeper" and was down near the bottom of the sheet in the #22 position.

(RIGHT) Having even worse luck on Friday was Dustin Bradford as this hellacious burnout was followed with a "No Time Recorded" clocking as the "American Dream" 'Cuda failed to make it down the track.

(LEFT) Making quite an impact in the first session was the "Nitro Clown" Z28 Camaro of Dave Gallegos as he pounded out a very good 4.230 - 168.73 that put him in the #5 position and solidly in the "A" field.

(RIGHT) Making an even bigger impact was the NHRA "Big Show" car of Mike Newkirk (near lane) as he stopped the timers with an excellent 3.936 - 188.44, good enough for the #3 position on the overall list and a spot in the "A" field for the "Disturbed" team. In the far lane, Robin Rish in his "Blown Retirement" entry fell back early and stopped the timers later at 5.577 - 129.65, landing in the #24 spot on the qualifying sheet.

(LEFT) The big news this season has been the performance of the "Williams Bros." team, as driver Kirk Williams went straight to the top with the low e.t. and top speed of the day, carding a 3.725 - 203.80 to show that they were aiming for the fifth straight final round of the season.

(RIGHT) Launching hard, with the wheels up and the chassis torqued over, Jeff Cameron was forced to lift and get back on the pedal in the "Jake's Speed Shop" entry. The end result was a mediocre 5.393 - 127.59 timeslip that put them in the #23 spot and a possible "C" field position going into Saturday's final qualifying session.

(LEFT) Points leader and two-time defending series champion Ken Singleton showed that the "High Risk" team wasn't lacking in performance as they took the #2 spot on the ladder with a very good 3.794 - 202.25 effort.

(RIGHT) Running last in the first session was series newcomer Tony Arcuri in his "Firefighter" and a serious lack of propulsion put him near the bottom of the list with a nothing-to-write-home-about pass of 20.417 - 31.31 best for the day.

BackUp people come in all shapes, sizes and genders, as evidenced here by the fun-loving "Reverse Gear Assistant" making a funny face (left) and the Greek warrior guy who backs up the "Brutus" car.

With the sun long since set and the track lights on, the second qualifying session saw some improved performances and at least a few sets of header flames from the nitro burning cars. With a new position near the starting line, our photographer (BIG Bob Snyder) took a series of side-by-side shots in the evening qualifying session.

(LEFT) In the near lane, Matt Nissen in his "Runnin' Down a Dream" pushed his way into the middle of the "B" field in the #14 position with a decent 4.625 - 131.31 pass, good enough for the #14 position, while in the far lane, Chris Schneider made a better run (4.471 - 157.18) for the #9 spot.

(RIGHT) Putting down a solid effort on Friday was Justin Herbst (near lane) in the Monza-bodied "Scorpion", clocking in at 4.731 - 147.88 for the #16 spot, while in the far lane, Jade Cook ended the day with a best of 4.670 - 128.79 to hold down the #15 slot on the list.

(LEFT) Pushing the "Prairie Fire" to the #10 position, near the top of the "B" field, was Nick Johnson as he carded a 4.480 - 154.16 best on the first day of qualifying.

(RIGHT) Partially obscured in the near lane, Andy Mears in his "Dragon Slayer" Chevy laid down a 4.547 - 153.64 to grab a spot in the "B" field in the lucky #13 position, while over in the far lane, the Doak & Poloson "Bucket List", driven by Nick Poloson, shut off early but still put down a good 4.503 - 117.71 for the #11 spot.

(LEFT) Looking to improve his performance after a few difficult outings, Chuck Loftin (far lane) tried hard with the nitro burning "Motivation" Mustang but came up short with a best for the day of only 4.848 - 149.60, good only for the #19 position and a provisional spot in the "C" field. Mostly obscured in the near lane was Robin Rish who failed to improve on his earlier 5.577 pass.

(RIGHT) In the near lane, Jordan Ballew finished the day with a 4.870 - 148.17 best, while on the far side, Tod Barker in the former Lynn Logue car fared a little better with a 4.812 - 126.12 after the second qualifying session.

(LEFT) Showing that he was serious about competing with the Funny Car Chaos regulars, Jim Chase clocked in at 4.402 - 165.20 in his "Wicked Quick" '57 Chevy, leaving him in the #8 spot, and a spot in the "A" field going into Saturday's final qualifier.

(RIGHT) In one of the shortest wheelbase cars on the circuit, Mike Buchanan made a best of the day 4.958 - 147.88 run in the "Hombre" Vega, leaving him in the #21 spot and safely in the "C" field.

(LEFT) Running under the lights, the "Nitro Clown" of Dave Gallegos put on a good flame show (not shown here unfortunately) for the fans, and finished Friday in the #5 position on the list.

(RIGHT) After a semifinal finish at the previous event (Kearney, NB), Steve Vang wanted to keep the momentum going and pushed the "Wicked Weekender" to a very good 4.299 - 163.99 that placed him #7 and a spot in the "A" field going into Saturday's final session.

(LEFT) In the near lane, Tom Furches launched his "Made in America" to a competitive 4.231 - 169.81 time that put him #6 and well into the "A" field, while in the far lane, Jeff Cameron had his troubles continue as he was unable to better his earlier 5.393 - 127.59 and sat near the bottom of the "C" field in the #23 position.

(RIGHT) Coming out to back up his earlier low qualifying 3.725 pass, Kirk Williams appeared to start his burnout well out of the groove, and didn't better his earlier low qualifying numbers, but still held on to the #1 spot going into the final Saturday qualifying session.

(LEFT) With the heavy hitters in the earlier session coming up near the end of the second session, Ken Singleton held onto his #2 spot with a 3.794 - 202.25 timeslip.

(RIGHT) Closing out the evening was Mike Newkirk and he stayed in the #3 spot with his 3.936 - 188.44 pass in the "Disturbed" car.

The latest update as of July 12, 2021

Nothing yet in the way of pictures, but we do have the results and will post them later today. Quickly, we can sum them up as follows:

"A" field WINNER Ken Singleton runner-up Jim Chase

"B" field WINNER Daniel Butherus runner-up Steve Vang

"C" field WINNER Andy Mears runner-up Jade Cook

NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster & Funny Car Standings

NOTE: Click on the images to see a larger - and easier to read - version of these tables

The latest update as of July 10, 2021

Friday's qualifying for Top Alcohol (Funny Car & Dragster) was completed at Woodburn Dragstrip and a full field of dragsters, plus an alternate, took part. The Funny Car field swelled to seven from Thursday's five, so the number of cars in competition will make for a good show during eliminations this afternoon. Leading the dragsters, was the lone Canadian competing in the event, Langley BC's Shawn Cowie as he continues his quest for a first national championship. His first session 5.235 - 278.81 led the field, with Chris Demke second on the sheet with a 5.297 - 272.31. From there the numbers trailed down to Kim Parker's bump spot 5.501 - 269.13, followed closely by the sole alternate, Trevor Larkin, who fell just three thousdandths short at 5.504 - 265.64.

On the Funny Car side, Mike Doushgounian made quite an impact in his season debut, clocking a top qualifying 5.543 - 263.08 to lead national contenders Brian Hough, who took the #2 spot with a close 5.572 - 265.33, while defending national champion, Doug Gordon finished down in the #5 spot with a 5.609 - 265.72 (top speed of the day) timelsip. Finishing above Gordon on the list was Oregon's Chris Marshall with a 5.591 - 263.92 and Colorado's Terry Ruckman (also at his first race of the season) with a solid 5.608 - 260.41 for the #4 spot. A bit of a surprise was seeing Nick Januik (currently #6 in national points) at the bottom of the field in the #7 spot with a troubled best (in the final session) of 7.836 - 96.25, after two earlier efforts in the 9-second zone.

With his top qualifying spot in TA/FC, Doushgounian earned the first round bye, but will have some serious opposition in the semi-finals, having to face either Terry Ruckman or Doug Gordon. Other first round pairings feature Brian Hough with lane choice over Nick Januik, and Chris Marshall having his pick over fellow Division Six racer, Randy Parker. In the TA/Dragster field, there's an even balance of four injected nitro and four blown alcohol cars. There will be two nitro vs alky matchups, with Cowie facing Kim Parker, and Chris Demke paired up with Mitch Myers. The it's blown vs blown as Joey Severance faces Mike Austin, and finally a pair of nitro burners as Casey Grisel faces Garrett Bateman.

If every car runs to their potential, there won't be any easy races in either field and by the final rounds roll around at 5pm, the competition should be especially fierce. We'll update this page with results during the afternoon and update the national points standings tomorrow.

Meanwhile, in Wichita, the FUNNY CAR CHAOS gang completed two rounds of qualifying last night at Kansas International Dragway's 58th annual Summer Nationals. The "usual suspects" Kirk Williams and Ken Singleton finished the evening in the #1 (Williams with a 3.725 - 203.80) and #2 (Singleton with a 3.794 - 202.25 positions. They were the only cars in the 3.70's and over 200 mph, as the #3 qualifier, Mike Newkirk finished well back with a best of 3.936 - 188.44 clocking. From there, the list dropped into the 4.10's (Shayne Lawson), then the 4.20's (three cars). The provisional bump spot for the "A" field was taken by Jim "Wicked Quick" Chase at a leisurely 4.402 - 165.20 pace.

From there, the "B" field stretched from #9's Chris "Brutus" Schneider's 4.471 - 157.18 time down to the #16 car on the list, Justin Herbst at 4.731 - 147.88. The "C" field started with #17 Scott Pareso at 4.756 - 146.82, and finished with #24's Robin Rish 5.577 - 129.65 at the bottom of the field. Sitting on the outside going into today's final qualifying session were series regulars Keith Jackson and Dustin Bradford who failed to complete a pass, while newcomers Tony Arcuri and Alex Barker both posted e.t.'s that fell well short of the field.

We will have results from that final qualifier and eliminations posted tomorrow, along with what we hope are a large batch of photos from our correspondent, BIG Bob Snyder.

2:00 PM UPDATE

The first round of eliminations at Woodburn have been run, and there were two lower qualified cars advancing in Top Alcohol Dragster: #7 qualifier Mitch Myers over #2 Chris Demke. Demke left first by two hundredths, and held the lead until half track, when Myers' A/Fuel horsepower started to take over, but at the 1000' mark, Demke was still leading by .007 before the engine shut down (I'm guessing the blower backfired or the belt came off) and he coasted to the loss at 5.901 - 195.95 to Myers' improved (over qualifying) 5.333 - 270.43 clocking.

The second "upset" saw Garrett Bateman come out of the #5 spot to take the win over #4 qualified Casey Grisel. With only two hundredths of a second separating them in qualifying, it could be called a "pick 'em" race, but after holding the lead until nearly half track, Grisel apparently was forced to pedal and fell back badly before getting on the loud pedal again to stop the timers at 5.801 - 253.87. However, that was a long way behind Bateman's winning time of 5.349 - 276.72.

The two featured protagonists coming into the event, Shawn Cowie and Joey Severance, both advanced easily, with Cowie pounding out a new low e.t. of the meet 5.232 - 278.37 to cover Kim Parker's valiant effort of 5.593 - 262.00. Parker left first by nearly five hundredths, but Cowie took the lead before the 60' clocks and steadily increased the gap to the finish line. In the other pairing, Severance improved slightly over his qualifying time and put down a good 5.310 - 272.47 to put Mike Austin back in the trailer. They left the starting line together, but Severance had opened a sizeable gap before the 60' mark and kept pulling away until Austin shut off at the 1000' mark.

The semi-finals in T/AD will see Cowie holding lane choice over Bateman, and Severance over Myers. Could it be yet another Cowie vs Severance final round? Stay tuned!

In Funny Car, low qualifier Mike Doushgounian earned the bye run and didn't take it easy, pounding out a very good 5.570 - 265.17 to move into the semifinals. In the first pairing of the round, Brian Hough took a wire-to-wire win over a troubled Nick Januik, putting a merciful end to Nick's "lost" weekend. Hough ran just a hair slower than his qualifying best, turning a 5.590 - 262.23 to advance over Januik's very early shutoff 10.354 - 83.15 pass.

The next pair saw Randy Parker put up a good fight against heavily favoured Chris Marshall, leaving first and holding a narrow lead until almost the 1000 ft mark, before falling short by a car length at the finish line, 5.714 - 256.91 against Marshall's winning 5.640 - 262.23 effort. That led to the final match of the first round, and Doug Gordon turned up the wick to run low e.t. of the round (and top speed of the meet) at 5.551 - 266.82 to put an early end to Terry Ruckman's day as he shook hard off the line and slowed to a 11.692 - 74.33 for the loss.

That set up semi-final matchups of Gordon (with lane choice) against Doushgounian, and an all-Oregon battle of Hough vs Marshall, with Hough having his pick of the lanes. The next update will be coming up in an hour or so. As always: stay tuned!

4:00 PM UPDATE

The semifinal rounds have been completed at Woodburn and the final round that we were predicting isn't going to happen. Leading off the semis, Joey Severance advanced to the final with a consistent 5.329 - 272.47 pass to easily cover Mitch Myers' early shutoff 6.156 - 182.59. In the other pairing, Shawn Cowie met Garrett Bateman and lost, as Bateman laid down a decent 5.412 - 278.89 for the win, while Cowie either shoook the tires or went up in smoke, or both, and coasted to a losing 9.818 - 87.38 time.

In Top Alcohol Funny Car, the first pair out, Brian Hough and Chris Marshall, had a good race until the 300' mark, where it appears that Hough was forced to pedal, and cross the finish line at a losing 5.831 - 248.96, while Marshall turned on the winlight with a much quicker 5.587 - 265.01 pass. As it turned out, that was good enough to give him lane choice in the final against Doug Gordon, who put away Mike Doushgounian by a 5.717 - 255.60 to 8.193 - 107.60 margin, as Doushgounian was out of it early and coasted to the loss.

The Funny Car Chaos event at Wichita finished qualifying with a great final session that saw a number of racers step up and tighten up all three fields. Unfortunately, our photographer (BIG Bob Snyder) hasn't been able to send along any pictures yet. With a long drive ahead of him on Sunday (1000+ miles of driving home to Phoenix, we may not see anything until late Monday.

The latest update as of July 9, 2021

Going into this weekend, the NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series has seen eight regional and six national events completed. When the tire smoke clears tomorrow night at Woodburn, OR's Western Regional, there will be 13 confirmed and one possible (Mission, BC) regional events left on the schedule. With the cancellation of Seattle's Flav-R-Pac NHRA Northwest Nationals, there are nine more national events remaining for the Lucas Oil racers. Topping the agenda at these races are the Top Alcohol Dragsters and Funny Cars and that's where our focus is aimed.

The car count at this weekend's race in Oregon is looking a little low, as seven dragsters and five funny cars ran during yesterday's test session. Among them were two of the top contenders for the national championship (Doug Gordon and Brian Hough in Funny Car, and Shawn Cowie and Joey Severance in Dragster. The balance of the fields are all competitive cars, and with the weather forecast sunny and warm (90F +/-), conditions should be good for the three supercharged alky dragsters (Cowie, Severance, and Chris Demke). We'll be following the action via NHRA's "Live Timing" application and post the updated national points standings on Monday.

Further east, the FUNNY CAR CHAOS crew is at Wichita's Kansas International Dragway for their 58th annual Summer Nationals, as qualifying starts this evening and concludes tomorrow afternoon, with eliminations to follow tomorrow night. There's 30 confirmed pre-entries, with nine of the top ten, and 15 of the top 20 cars in the points standings in attendance. The major battle between two-time defending champion Ken Singleton and NHRA "Big Show" Top Alcohol challenger Kirk Williams will continue, with just six points separating the top two racers in the FCC.

This weekend's race will be number six of the eight events on their 2021 calendar, and with the "dropped" race rule in place, where each racer drops their lowest points earning event from the final standings, Singleton and Williams would be tied if the season ended now. There are provisions for tie-breaking but it's not worth exploring all the possible permutations at this time. After this weekend's event, the series takes a summer break before resuming at Mo-Kan Dragway on Labor Day weekend, and wrapping up the season at the Alamo City Motorplex (San Antonio, TX) the first week of October.

The latest update as of July 7, 2021

NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster & Funny Car Standings

NOTE: Click on the image to see a larger - and easier to read - version of these tables

There is one correction (actually, a few) to make to the NHRA Top Alcohol Funny Car standings, as Dan Pomponio, who ran at last weekend's North Central regional event, earned 10 points for his qualifying attempt during the first session on Friday. The car broke after the burnout, and never came out of the pits for the rest of the event, so he wasn't listed on the qualifying sheets as he never staged the car under power. However, because he made an attempt to run, he earned the 10 "participation" points, which kept him in the Top Ten at #9 and left Matt Gill in #10 and Tony Bogolo in the #11 position.

The latest update as of June 21, 2021

NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster & Funny Car Standings

It was a busy weekend for the NHRA Top Alky cars, with events on both sides of the country: Lebanon Valley Dragway in New Jersey, and Bandimere Speedway in Colorado. And it did have some effect on the points standings, with Shawn Cowie continuing his climb up the charts as he moved within 32 points of leader Jackie Fricke, courtesy of his win at the Western Regional at Bandimere. Fricke was competing at Lebanon Valley but fell in the semifinal round to Duane Shields, who won the event and moved up one spot to #4 with his win.

James Stevens had a good weekend at Denver, only falling in the final round to Cowie, and gained one spot to #6, while 1st round loser Joey Severance also advanced a position to #7 over Karen Stalba who was idle over the weekend. One more racer climbed into the Top Ten, as Rich McPhillips Jr. finished runnerup to Shields and bumped into the #9 spot.

Here's the updated standings that also show who's racing this coming weekend at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Norwalk. It's going to be quite a battle, with eight of the top ten cars in attendance, and a field of 20 competing; the largest car count since the second Las Vegas event in 2019. It's a fairly diverse field with seven blown alky cars competing against 13 injected fuel burners. It's definitely going to be a great show for the fans with some incredible performances on tap.

NOTE: Click on the image to see a larger - and easier to read - version of these tables

On the Funny Car side, points leader (and defending champion) Doug Gordon won the Denver event and lengthened his lead to 127 points over #2 (and idle) Bob McCosh Jr.. Below McCosh, Wyoming's Kris Hool vaulted over the also idle Sean Bellemeur into the #3 spot. Two racers bumped into the Top Ten, as Lebanon winner, Dan Pomponio and runnerup Matt Gill moved into the #9 and #10 positions respectively, bumping out Aryan Rochon and Mark Billington in the process.

One final note concerns the red numbers appearing in a few places in the standings. They indicate points that have been waived, which starts once a racer attends more than three regional and seven national events (the most that a racer can earn points from). We've guessed which races were waived as the NHRA website hasn't been completely updated to reflect those decisions.

In other drag racing news, the third event on the NHRA Hot Rod Heritage Series calendar took place at Bowling Green, Kentucky's Beech Bend Raceway Park over the weekend. The Holley National Hot Rod Reunion was a very successful event, with full fields of Top Fuel Dragsters and Funny Cars in competition. We know that nine AA/FD's attempted to qualify, and that Jimi Young defeated Dan Horan Jr. in the final, with both drivers recording great e.t.'s and speeds. On the Funny Car side, the "Illinois Thunder" entry of Levi Keenen was low qualifer and took the event win over John Smith's Firebird-bodied "Entertainer" in a close race.

We do have a large number of photos from Friday's qualifying at Bandimere, courtesy of our Western correspondent, Dale Fackler but it's going to be later in the week before we can get them posted. Sometimes, real life, and a short holiday, take precedence over the world of drag racing. As always, stay tuned for updates, photos and news as soon as we have time to get to it.

The latest update as of June 15, 2021

We've got photos from the final qualifying session and the first two rounds of eliminations from Saturday's FUNNY CAR CHAOS event at Kearney Raceway Park. The captions and details will follow a little later. It's a busy week of things non-drag racing here at Northern Thunder, so please bear with us.

Here's the updated FUNNY CAR CHAOS points standings (which also show the pre-entry list for the next race on the schedule) following the Kearney Raceway event. It only shows the top ten cars due to space considerations, as there's nearly 80 (!) racers on the list at this point in the season.

QUALIFYING - FINAL Session

ELIMINATIONS - Round ONE

"A" Field

"B" Field

"C" Field

The latest update as of June 13, 2021

Sunday morning update

We're waiting for the photos from Saturday's final qualifying session and eliminations, but we do have the results of the race, courtesy of the FUNNY CAR CHAOS Facebook page and website.

Eliminations - Round One

In the first round there were some incredible runs in the "A" field, with two cars in the 3.70's, three more in the 3.80's, and one in the 3.90's. Closest race of the round saw Mike Newkirk turn on the winlight with a great 3.875 - 173.99 to overcome the quicker 3.861 - 189.39 of Jim Chase. Newkirk's very quick light (.025) was enough to cross the line ahead of Chase's (.049) launch. The only problem was that Newkirk took out a timing block and gave the win back to Chase.

Other highlights of the round were Ken Singleton advancing over Keith Jackson with low e.t. of the round at 3.753 - 204.26. Another of the hitters to move into the semis was Kirk Williams with a 3.756 - 204.73 (top speed of the meet) over the redlighting 3.950 - 188.33 pass of Shayne Lawson. The final winner of the round was Lance Van Hauen, laying down a 3.899 - 194.58, despite a late leave (.157 to .074) to cover Chuck Loftin's not quite good enough 4.122 - 188.41.

In the "B" field, there were two very close races that were decided on the starting line via the redlight route, as Jeff Krug went red by .007 to give the win to Steve Vang as both racers carded 4.287 e.t.'s. The other foul start was even closer to perfect as the .004 too early leave of Dave Gallegos gave the automatic win to Tom Furches. The other winners in the round were Jeff Cameron, over Chris Schneider) and Steve Timoszyk over Daniel Butherus.

The final group, the "C" field saw one car (Jordan Ballew) break before staging, and one car (Bill Naves) breakout. With the index for the field set at 4.29 (two tenths quicker than the top qualifer in that field), Naves left late (.165 to .043) then blasted through the index with a 3.938 - 183.07 that negated the winlight shining in his lane, and advancing opponent Dustin Bradford. The beneficiary of Ballew's breakage was Scott Pareso who advanced with an easy 4.739 - 147.09.

The closest race of the round for any field was between Nick Johnson who barely eked out the win over Matt Nissen. Leaving first by a .008 to .106 margin, Nissen nearly made his 4.609 cover Johnson's much quicker 4.500, but the gap at the 660' mark was .011 second in Johnson's favour. Closing the round was Andy Mears taking an easy win over a slowing Jon Reich.

Eliminations - Semi-Finals

If you thought the action was intense in the first round, it got even hotter in the semis. In the first pair of the "A" field, Ken Singleton kept things rolling with a solid 3.74 - 198 decision over Lance Van Hauen's very good 3.88 - 196 losing effort. The other pair saw an identical winning time as Kirk Williams put down a slightly better 3.74 - 204 to move into the final. His opponent in the semis was Jim Chase who posted another very good pass of 3.92 - 189 that came up short against Williams' continuing rampage through the FCC ranks.

In the "B" field, the times were identical for the two winners, as Jeff Cameron laid down a to advance past Steve Vang's good try 4.30 - 165. In the other pairing, Steve Timoszyk made his 4.12 - 176 stand up for the win over Tom Furches very close 4.26 - 164. What made that race so close was the .064 to .170 advantage for Furches at the starting line. At the finish, the margin was less than a car length.

Things calmed down somewhat in the "C" field semis, with Andy Mears punching his ticket to the final with a 4.37 - 161 win over Nick Johnson's good try 4.51 - 154. In the other pair, Dustin Bradford moved into the final, courtesy of his 4.63 - 125 (early shutoff) over Scott Pareso's second best 5.07 - 146 effort.

Eliminations - Finals

We don't have times and speeds to report for the finals, but the winners were as follows:

"A" Field: Ken Singleton over Kirk Williams

"B" Field: Steve Timoszyk over Jeff Cameron

"C" Field: Andy Mears over Dustin Bradford

The latest update as of June 12, 2021

Saturday morning update

It was quite a surprise to see my email inbox filling up with photos late last night, but I managed to get them all downloaded and posted (see below). Now all I have to do is fill in the blanks underneath the pictures. The photos from today's final qualifying and eliminations at the FUNNY CAR CHAOS event in Kearney probably won't arrive until tomorrow morning... if we're lucky. With a drive of 1172 miles home facing him, our ace lensman (BIG Bob Snyder) might just hit the road and send the pics along on Tuesday. Fingers crossed.

A few notes from the FCC event: All 29 cars on the pre-entry list showed up for this event and they all made at least one qualifying pass. While some of the familiar faces and cars were missing from the lineup, they were replaced by some newcomers to the circuit, which included Steve Cluck ("Red Headed Stepchild"), David Hill ("Zeus"), and Jon Reich, who's doing double duty, debuting his blown fuel "Blitz Kreig" and an injected alky car "Cox Pinto" (a recreation of a car campaigned in the early 1970's.

Joining them were Jim Chase, out for the first time this year in his "Wicked Quick" '57 Chevy, and a handful of cars that have stayed home since the season opener in March at the Texas Motorplex. Besides the 29 FCC cars, there are four injected alky funnies, and a pair of Jet Funny Cars. Lots of action and some great performances are going to make this weekend a big one at Kearney Raceway Park.

7:00 PM UPDATE: The first round of eliminations is over at Kearney Raceway and there were some incredible battles in all three fields. Only one racer (Danny Smith) reported in broken, allowing the #25 car (Scott Pareso) into the "C" field. We'll have details later this evening and photos tomorrow morning. Hopefully.

In other drag racing news, the 53rd Australian Winternationals is in progress at Willowbank Raceway (Ipswich, QLD). It's always the biggest event on the Australian drag racing calendar, and with things starting to return to "normal" downunder, it's being run for the first time in two years. There's a dozen Top Alcohol cars entered, good numbers of Pro Slammer (all-out Aussie Pro Mod), Pro Stock (with small-block engines), Supercharged Outlaws (a great mix of altereds, funny cars, dragsters, etc), and a host of support classes, but the "flagship" class (Top Fuel) is sorely lacking with just three entries. With the Rapisarda Motorsports team not there (they have four cars), it's not much of a show, but Peter Xiberras gave the fans a great show last night, running the quickest 100 ft. pass in Aussie history, at 3.76 - 320+ mph... but lost the race to opponent Phil Lamattina due to a redlight.

Sidenote: The last time I went down a dragstrip in my Top Alcohol Dragster was there at the 2001 edition, where we were fortunate enough to qualify in the tough 8-car field. We won't mention that we dropped a valve on the first round burnout and finished with the car next to the wall and me standing (on the other side) watching my opponent, Mark Brew, make a 5.72 solo pass that stood for low e.t. of the meet. At least we knew that we'd have had a very tough time coming close to that number.

We've got heaps of stories and pictures from those days buried somewhere in the archives of this website, but we will endeavour to dig them up and update the "What's Old" pages, which while they have lots of links to What's New page updates, the html code behind them needs to be updated to the current directory structure of the website. Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen any time soon though.

After a total washout yesterday due to unrelenting rain, the NHRA Western Regional Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series is underway at Seattle's Pacific Raceways. The forecast for today is fine, but after that, it's more rain starting late this evening, and continuing throughout Sunday. The plan is to have everyone make one qualifying run, then go straight into eliminations, with a view to completing the event in one day. We'll bring you updates on the Top Alcohol cars when they run.

6:30 PM UPDATE: We have the details on the Top Alcohol classes running at the NHRA Western Regional at Seattle. Only seven dragsters and just three funny cars showed up and they were given one qualifying pass before going into eliminations. With rain forecast to start again this evening, it looks like they may just get finished before the track shuts down for the evening.... and with the forecast bad for tomorrow, that would most likely be the end of the event for now.

The funny cars just finished their second, and final, round of eliminations, and Oregon's Chris Marshall took the win over Brian Hough. The other racer, Top Ten contender Nick Januik redlighted in the first round and got an early start on the long drive home to Las Vegas. The win marked Marshall's first NHRA appearance of the season, as he's been on the MidWest Drag Racing Series tour up until now.

The Top Alcohol Dragsters still have the final round to run (scheduled for 8:00 pm). Low qualifier was the Canadian, Shawn Cowie who blasted out a 5.178 - 277.32 that earned him a bye run in the first round in the 7-car field. Following not too far behind in qualifying were the A/Fuel cars of Garrett Bateman (5.247) and Mitch Myers (5.257). Cowie shook hard before the 330' mark and shutoff to an 8-second clocking, while Casey Grisel stepped up BIG and laid down a 5.206 to advance to the semi-final with lane choice over Cowie. The other first round wins went to Bateman and Myers, with Bateman holding lane choice for their semi-final match.

The semi-finals just finished running and Cowie dispatched Grisel with a 5.203 - 279.09 when Grisel was forced to lift at the 500' mark. In the other semi, it was Myers winning over Bateman, setting up the final round match between Myers and Cowie, with Cowie holding lane choice in that one.

8:30 PM UPDATE: The final results are in from Seattle and it was Mitch Myers taking the win with a great 5.226 - 273.77 over Shawn Cowie's pedal-job 5.474 - 274.72 pass. Cowie launched first, but Myers took back the lead at the 60' mark, then when Cowie had to pedal at the top of low gear, he lost enough momentum that he trailed Myers by three car lengths at half track. From there to the finish line, Cowie poured on the power, clocking a higher speed than Myers, but at the stripe it was a trainlength between the two cars.

The latest update as of June 11, 2021

Yes, we've got another FUNNY CAR CHAOS event happening, with two qualifying sessions tonight, a final one tomorrow afternoon, and eliminations tomorrow night. Our photographer, BIG Bob Snyder is there and ready to capture all the action and give us the insider details that he picks up in the pits, in the staging lanes, and around the starting line. Here's the photos from the first two sessions. NOTE: Funny Car Chaos doesn't post the results from each qualifying session on Friday; the sheet they put out at the end of the evening shows the best results for each car on the day and we can't tell which session produced which e.t.'s and speeds for the racers.

Qualifying Session #1

(LEFT) Leading off our qualifying coverage, last week's hard luck "winner", Chuck Loftin rebuilt the engine and got the "Motivation" Mustang down the track in good order, with a Friday best of 4.011 - 183.74 that was good enough for the #5 position on the ladder

(RIGHT Back out for the first time since the season opener, Mike Newkirk pushed his "Disturbed" entry to a very good 4.017 - 163.81 as yet another NHRA Top Alky "refugee" joined the FCC party. His best run of the day left him just one spot behind Loftin, in the #6 spot

(LEFT) We've got a pair of cars in this photo, with Steve Vang mostly obscured in the near lane, and Dalle Gallegos already trailing in the far lane in his "Nitro Clown". He didn't exactly ignite the scoreboards, but his decent 4.424 - 130.67 effort put him in the #13 position and a spot in the middle of the "B" field

(RIGHT This time we've got both cars in the frame, with Lance Van Hauen (near lane) starting to run away from Nick Johnson in the "Prairie Fire" (far lane). Van Hauen stopped the clocks with a great 3.948 - 192.82 pass that showed the true potential of his combination and put him near the top of the heap in the #3 position, while Johnson was well back at 4.518 - 153.42, only good enough for #17 and a possible spot in the "C" field

(LEFT) One of the best appearing cars on the circuit, the "Dragon Slayer" '57 Chevy of Andy Mears put down a solid 4.506 - 156.86 that hung on to the final spot in the "B" field in the #16 position going into the final qualifier on Saturday

(RIGHT Looks like we've got a pair of '57's in the field, with Jim Chase brought out his "Wicked Quick" entry for the first time this season, didn't waste any time making his mark on the field, blasting out a 3.966 - 187.18 with his blown alky Hemi power, that left him sitting #4 after two sessions

(LEFT) The iconic "Detroit Tiger" tribute car of Michigan's Steve Timoszyk fell a little short in the e.t. department as it appeared he shut off early to a 4.299 - 133.49, placing him 10th on the list, near the top of the "B" field

(RIGHT From the Dept. of Corrections, I assumed that the "Man O' War", a former Paul Romine-owned and driven car that ran in the NHRA Heritage Series on nitro, was still using the yellow fuel at Funny Car Chaos races. NO, I was wrong, it's a blown alky car and it still runs fast but without the nitro. Shayne Lawson didn't let the lack of liquid horsepower prevent him from running a very good 4.040 - 181.13 that placed him in the lucky #7 spot in the "A" field

(LEFT) Here's one of the newcomers to the circuit, as Steve Cluck debuted his Camaro-bodied "Red Headed Stepchild" and didn't have the most auspicious debut, with a "best" for the day of 6.868 - 78.04 that left him at the very bottom of the list in the #29 spot. Obviously some serious improvement will be needed in his last chance to qualify on Saturday

(RIGHT As a special feature, the FCC has invited four injected alcohol-burning cars to join the party, and we've got two of them (mostly) in this frame. In the near lane (partially obscured) is the "Hot Pursuit" of Pete Mass from Colorado, while on the far side, it's another Coloradan, Don Finley in the appropriately named "Mile High Missile". We don't have any times or speeds to report for these cars though

Looks like this one happy camper, as the FCC videographer lets everyone know he's impressed with the performances going past him

Qualifying Session #2

(LEFT) Track prep equipment comes in all shapes and sizes, and this dual-purpose unit that works in the fields on weekdays is converted to a tire dragger on race weekends

(RIGHT Leading off the evening session was series newcomer Jon Reich in his "Blitz Kreig" entry. He didn't get all the power down to the ground in his debut, but a respectable 4.740 - 132.01 put him in the #24 spot and a toehold on the bottom rung of the "C" field ladder

Warming up the tires before his qualifying attempt, Chris Schneider heated the hides in the "Brutus" Mustang, then staged up against Danny Smith in the "Snafu" car (far lane). Smith was a little rusty, not having run since the season opener, and it was reflected in the 4.655 - 147.68 timeslip that put him #23 spot going into Saturday. Schneider meanwhile, put down a better 4.579 - 153.89, good for #19 on the list

(LEFT) It's a pair of cars in this photo, with Matt Nissen in his "Runnin' Down A Dream" (near lane) leaving first, but finishing second as he stopped the clocks at 4.617 - 152.38 (#21), while opponent (in the far lane), Steve Vang punched out a better 4.333 - 164.07 for the #11 spot in his "Wicked Weekender" entry

(RIGHT Another pair, leaving together, had Dustin Bradford (near lane) in the "American Dream" 'Cuda clocking a 4.596 - 133.75 to hold down the #20 spot, while in the far lane, Jordan Ballew in his beautiful Camaro-bodied "Ballew Thunder" crossed the finish line first with a #15 qualifying 4.505 - 157.25 pass

(LEFT) In the next pair, Justin Herbst (near lane) could only push his little Monza-bodied "Scorpion" to a sub-par 4.926 - 140.63 that left him outside the 24 car group that qualifies for eliminations. His #26 position left him just one more chance to move into the "C" field (or better). In the far lane, Jim Chase made a second pass with his '57 Chevy and ended the day with a best of 3.966 - 187.18 putting him #4 on the list

(RIGHT Last week's double winner, Kirk Williams (near lane) paired up with Andy Mears (far lane) in a one-sided affair. Williams blitzed the timers with a #2 qualifying 3.761 - 202.79 (top speed of the meet so far), to train-length Mears' #16 qualifying effort of 4.506 - 156.86 in his '57 Chevy

(LEFT) Coming out for his second attempt, Lance Van Hauen (near lane) stayed in the #3 spot with a 3.948 - 192.82 time, while Steve Timoszyk held onto the #10 position with his 4.299 - 133.49 best

(RIGHT In the near lane, Nick Johnson posted a #17 qualifying 4.518 - 153.42 best, while in the far lane - and mostly obscured - was the returning turbo-powered "Altered Reality" of Colorado's Scott Pareso made a troubled pass of 4.974 - 143.52 to land in the #27 spot, and well out of the "C" field going into Saturday's final qualifying session

(LEFT) Driving the "Jake's Speed Shop" entry (in the near lane) was Jeff Cameron who posted a #9 qualifying 4.138 - 167.68 pass, while on the far side, Chuck Loftin made another qualifying pass that left him in the #5 spot with a 4.011 - 183.74 best for the day

(RIGHT co-points and defending series champion, Ken Singleton in the "High Risk" car made his presence felt in a big way as he captured the top spot on the charts with a low e.t. of 3.734 at 197.97 mph. In the far lane, the bright green "Obsession" of Jeff Krug pounded out a 4.333 at an early shut off 137.27, good enough for the #12 spot in the middle of the "B" field

Making his Funny Car Chaos debut was David Hill in his sharp looking "Zeus" entry. His Friday best was 4.876 - 148.30, leaving him just outside the "C" field in the 25th slot on the list. His opponent in this pairing was Mike Newkirk (far lane) in his Top Alcohol "Disturbed" entry that carded a very good 4.017 - 163.81 to hold down the #6 spot in the "A" field

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The latest update as of June 10, 2021

And now for something completely different... we've got some awesome images from the Anamosa, Iowa Hill Climb that took place on the Sunday after last week's FUNNY CAR CHAOS event at Eddyville Dragway. Our travelling photographer, BIG Bob Snyder, has been a motorcycle maniac for most of his life and took a tour of the National Motorcycle Museum at Anamosa, then went to the hillclimb. Click on the poster and you'll be taken to a small page of photos from the event. Bob was able to secure clearance to shoot from the top of the hill, but he had to get up there first. Not up the race course, but it was still a major job coaxing the van up the back way to get to the top and into a position that allowed him to capture some great shots.

Don't worry about NORTHERN THUNDER changing its focus from drag racing, but we can always appreciate anything mechanically and graphically interesting when we're not up to our ears in all things drag racing. Next up will be event coverage from this week's stop on the FCC tour, at Kearney Raceway Park, starting tomorrow afternoon. Also, we'll have details from the NHRA Western Regional at Pacific Raceways... if the weather holds up, and right now it's looking rather doubtful for the weekend.

The latest update as of June 8, 2021

With the halfway point reached in the eight event FUNNY CAR CHAOS schedule for 2021, we've got the updated points standings posted below. It's interesting to note that there have been some major changes over the course of the last few races, and a number of new faces have appeared in the upper echelon of the standings at this point. Most surprising of all, to most followers of FCC, is the #3 driver on the list, Jade Cook, driving her canary yellow "Nemesis", and running without nitro, without a blower, without a turbo, even without a hemi. She's consistently gone rounds at every event this year and came close to reaching another final round at Eddyville before a small problem forced her to shut off before staging in the semi-finals.

While the two-time defending series champion, Ken Singleton is still on top of the standings, he's got company in the form of Kirk Williams who has run successfully at NHRA national and regional events in recent years, but has become a full-time member of FCC in 2021. In fact, he's got the hottest car and team in the pits currently, taking the rain-delayed Odessa final during the final qualifying session at Eddyville, then doubling up with the event win later in the day to pull into a tie for the points lead with Singleton. His final round opponent both times on Saturday was Mr. Singleton and the "High Risk" car. It looks like it's going to be quite a battle between these two for the rest of the ' season.

Click on the graphic below to see an enlarged version of the standings. If you want to see the full standings, go to the Funny Car Chaos website and you'll see all 72 drivers that have garnered points so far this year. Note that a racer can only count their seven best races towards the championship. If they miss a race, that counts as their "dropped" race in the final totals.

The latest update as of June 7, 2021

We've got the photos from the final round of qualifying at Eddyville, taking place on Saturday afternoon. This time the angles are a little different, with the cars coming at our photographer with the chutes out in the shutdown. As a bonus, the first pair down the track were not only trying to improve their qualifying positions, but were also running the rain-delayed final round from the previous race at Odessa, TX. It was a titanic battle, with both drivers giving it all they had trying to secure the win, the $5000 winners purse, and the all-important points towards the season championship.

FINAL QUALIFYING SESSION

(LEFT) The battle for the event win from race #3 (Odessa) saw Kirk Williams (left lane) take on Ken Singleton (right lane) and it was all over at the tree as Singleton left too early, handing the automatic win to Williams. But the top qualifier spot was still up for grabs and Singleton laid down his best run of qualifying at 3.861 - 201.79 in a vain attempt to take back the #1 spot on the ladder

(RIGHT Cruising past with one chute out, Kirk Williams won the race and held onto the top spot with a good 3.76 - 202 pass that was a little slower than his best Friday effort of 3.732 - 200.62

(LEFT) Adding insult to injury, Singleton's chutes came out late and he wound up going off the end of the track, but fortunately got it stopped before going into the trees. There was no damage to the car and they were able to get it ready for eliminations without any major stress

(RIGHT) Making good on his last shot, Chris Foster pushed his "Everybody's Nightmare" into the "A" field, improving on his Friday best of 4.342 - 129.80 to a #5 qualifying 3.955 - 192.88 that was much more representative of the car's capabilities

(LEFT) The last shot for Justin Herbst saw him improve from Friday's 4.577 to a 4.564 - 152.80, but he fell two spots from #18 to #20, remaining in the "C" field

(RIGHT) On the flip side, Phil Landram knocked more than one second off his previous best (6.882 - 66.86) and moved up one spot from #25 to #24 with an improved 5.546 - 124.41 to slot in near the bottom of the "C" field

(LEFT) There's actually two cars in this photo, but in the far lane - and far, far back - is Monty Stotz, while in the foreground is Robbie Massey in the "Moats, Massey & Grimm" entry. Massey didn't improve over his Friday best of 3.875 - 190.19 but it was still good enough to hold on to the #3 position

(RIGHT) Long after Massey went by, came down, trailing two chutes despite a 'no improvement' that wasn't quicker than his previous 4.505 - 144.28 and saw him drop out of the "B" field into the "C" group. As it turned out, that wasn't such a bad thing for series newcomer Stotz

(LEFT) Finally starting getting on top of the combination needed to get down the track, Lance Van Hauen made a big leap up the ladder, from #21 to #14 and placed himself solidly into the "B" field with a decent 4.401 - 165.32, nearly half a second quicker than Friday's efforts

(RIGHT) Showing off his flat black paint scheme, Ivan Mercer slowed after making a big improvement of nearly two seconds and six places in the order, from #24 to #18 and a spot in the "C" field with his 4.477 - 162.45 a vast step forward from a 6-second best on the first day of qualifying

(LEFT) The last pair of qualifying started with Steve Timoszyk in his great looking "Detroit Tiger" Monza, and he stepped up just a fraction, from a 4.049 on Friday to a 4.038 - 180.22, that dropped him back one spot from #6 to #7 in the final order

(RIGHT) Closing out our qualifying coverage, Jeff Cameron stepped up nicely, picking up 17 hundredths and climbing from #17 to #12 and a spot in the "B" field for eliminations with his 4.343 - 143.45 clocking

Before eliminations could begin, there was some serious shuffling of the ladders for the three fields. The #8 qualifier, at the bottom of the "A" field, Mary Reep withdrew with a broken motor. Chuck Loftin didn't have enough parts to repair the damage on his aborted Friday afternoon 9-second qualifier and couldn't make the call for the "C" field, while John Umlauf wasn't able to fix his car after Friday's two sessions and had to drop out of the "C" field also. A big shock was Tom Furches being unable to make a pass all weekend due to a bad input shaft (nobody had one that fit his combination), and saw himself drop from #3 in the points standings to the #5 position.

"A" Field - Round One Eliminations

(LEFT) The first pair out of the lanes featured points leader Ken Singleton in the near lane against Steve Timoszyk in the far lane. Singleton left first by a tad and steadily pulled away going down the track, stopping the clocks with a great 3.826 - 201.70 to overshadow Timoszyk's good try of 4.263 - 171.04 in the losing cause

(RIGHT) Next up were the winner of the last event on the circuit, Kirk Williams (near lane) against the #9 qualifier (inserted to th "A" field due to Reep's breakage) Bill Naves in the "Shooting Star". Williams left first by nearly half a tenth and ran away from his fellow Top Alcohol racer with low e.t. of the round at 3.810 - 201.34 to cover Naves' slowing 4.109 - 149.80 pass

It's BURNOUT time, as Robbie Massey lights them up big time in the left photo, then lines up in the near lane (right photo) against.... nobody, as Shayne Lawson had the chutes pop out before staging and left Massey to run a solo. He didn't take it easy, even cutting a great .026 light, then followed up with a 3.983 - 184.50 to advance to the semi-finals

Another big time tire heater in the left photo, as "Everybody's Nightmare" warms up the track, then Chris Foster (near lane) stages up against Levi Keenen's Arrow-bodied "Illinois Thunder" in a fairly close side-by-side race. Leaving nearly together, Foster took the winlight with a 3.910 - 196.76 over Keenen's solid effort of 4.036 - 184.20. All four winners in the round ran in the 3-second zone, with Massey's 3.983 being the slowest winning time of the group

"B" field - Round One Eliminations

To eliminate possible sandbagging, the FCC rules stipulate that the "B" and "C" fields have an index, fixed two tenths of a second below the lowest qualifying e.t. in the respective fields. With one car broken in the "A" field (Mary Reep) causing Bill Naves to be elevated to the "A" group, the #10 qualifier, Steve Vang, who ran a best of 4.252 in qualifying became the standard bearer for the "B" field and consequently made the index for that group 4.05. Moving down to the "C" group, their quickest qualifer was Jeff Krug with a 4.466 and that made the index 4.27. The index system may sound a little odd, but it's necessary to keep people from going slow in qualifying, then "getting after it" and steamrolling the competition during eliminations. NOTE: The final rounds are heads-up; no breakout.

(LEFT) Leading off the "B" field, Jordan Ballew (near lane) matched wheels with Chris Schneider in the very familiar "Brutus" in the far lane, and the race was over before they left the line, with Ballew turning on the redlight, making Schenider's 4.539 - 162.22 pass the winning timeslip, as Ballew was off the pedal early with a 4.638 - 126.80 coming up on the scoreboards

(RIGHT) Next out of the waterbox were Steve Vang (near lane) against Jeff Krug (far lane). Krug, in the "Obsession", cut a very quick .006 light, leaving half a tenth ahead of Vang and taking the holeshot win, with his 4.314 - 168.22 holding on for the win over Vang's quicker 4.296 - 165.56 losing effort

(LEFT) Old against new, as Jeff Cameron in his late model body (near lane) took on the early Chevy "Dragon Slayer" of Andy Mears (far lane) and came close to the index with his winning 4.105 - 158.84 over Mears' 4.390 - 161.41 second best

(RIGHT) The round finished with fan favourite Jade "The Giant Killer" Cook (near lane) taking on the big horsepower Top Alcohol car of Lance Van Hauen, (far lane), leaving first by a smidge, then hanging on for the win with a solid 4.314 - 162.69 pass that took the winlight over Van Hauen's 3.930 - 193.30 effort. Can you say breakout? How about BREAKOUT! as Van Hauen went more than a tenth under the index, and his 193+ mph speed shows that he was on the loud pedal right into the lights

"C" Field - Round One Eliminations

(LEFT)The bottom eight qualfiers ran in the "C" field and it opened with Mike Buchanan (near lane) in his "Hombre" Vega leaving second by a ton, "cutting" a .284 light against opponent Daniel Butherus's .062 launch. Starting with a deficit of nearly a quarter of a second, Buchanan made it up and more, crossing the 1/8-mile finish line with a 5.590 - 104.43 pass to easily cover Butherus's slowing 6.106 - 75.20 as he limped through the lights

(RIGHT) In the next pair, Monty Stotz (near lane) left second, but finished first, as he made up for his late launch (.195 to .057) against Dustin Bradford's 'Cuda, putting down a 4.608 - 135.87 to easily outdistance Bradford's 5.201 - 130.32 losing pass

(LEFT) Nearly giving it away with an almost comatose reaction time of .477, Justin Herbst (near lane) had his work cut out for himself, but his much better 4.597 - 149.70 was more than enough to take the win over Phil Landram's losing effort of 5.216 - 132.51 and advance to the semi-final

(RIGHT) Closing out the first round of eliminations, Ivan Mercer, the low qualifier in the "C" field, got to take a single as there was simply no one left in the pits ready to give him a race. He took it easy on the bye, stopping the clocks at a leisurely 5.039 - 116.10 to wrap up the round

"A" Field - Semi-Finals

(LEFT) Opening the round of four with a great battle, Ken Singleton (near lane) cut a not-so-good light with a reaction time of .152, while opponent Robbie Massey (far lane) took a full tenth of a second advantage at the green with his .047 launch. It took all the horsepower that Singleton could muster to turn on the winlight with his 3.804 - 201.34 just holding off Massey's very competitive 3.941 - 188.68 effort. The margin at the finish was barely a car length

(RIGHT) The other pairing of the semi-finals didn't disappoint, as Chris Foster (near lane) left a tad ahead of Kirk Williams (far lane), but couldn't hold on for the win as his 3.893 - 198.24 fell to Williams' superior 3.827 - 200.62 pass. Again, it was only a one car length victory for the winner, but Williams lost lane choice to Singleton for the final round

"B" Field - Semi-Finals

The first pair featured Jeff Cameron (near lane) against Chris Schneider (far lane), with both cars leaving almost together, but Cameron turning on the winlight with a 4.152 - 155.82 beating Schneider's 4.446 - 160.66 second best effort

(LEFT)Putting down a nice burnout, Jade Cook looked like she might have a chance to be advancing to her third consecutive final round, but the car let her down after the tire smoker and she was forced to shut off before staging

RIGHT)The grateful recipient of Cook's misfortune was Jeff Krug and he made his best pass of the weekend, cranking out a very good 4.203 - 173.21 to advance to his first final round of his Funny Car Chaos career

"C" Field - Semi-Finals

(LEFT)Starting the "C" field semi-finals were Monty Stotz (near lane) continuing his good luck ways with a winning 4.503 - 154.64 that was enough to make up for his late leave (.197) and defeat Justin Herbst (far lane), who took a five hundredths advantage at the green and hold the lead until the 300' mark, but saw his 4.767 - 133.93 fall short at the finish line

(RIGHT) The last race of the semi-finals saw both racers sit for a rather long time at the line, as Mike Buchanan's .265 reaction time actually outdid Ivan Mercer's even worse .462 effort. Once they actually got in motion, Mercer's 4.551 - 160.20 overcame his late launch deficit, and easily covered Buchanan's 5.170 - 129.80 losing pass

In the "C" field final it was Monty Stotz (near lane) taking the win in the "Blue Thunder" Camaro in his Funny Car Chaos debut, over Ivan Mercer in his "Mac, Cheese & Joe" entry

Closing out the "B" field eliminations, it was Jeff Cameron in his "Jake's Speed Shop" car (near lane) taking the win over Jeff Krug in "Obsession" (far lane)

In the "A" field final for the BIG money ($5000 + contingencies to the winner), it was Kirk Williams in the "Williams Bros. Racing" entry (near lane) doubling up with his second event win of the day over Ken Singleton in the "High Risk" entry in the far lane. With the win, Williams moved into a tie for the points lead with Singleton at the halfway point of the season

As an added bonus for the fans, they finished the night with an impromptu match race between a funny car, Steve Vang in the near lane, matched up with the "Game Xchange" Jet Dragster of Ray Kelley in the far lane. No times or speeds recorded

The latest update as of June 3, 2021

It's the fourth installment of the eight race schedule for the FUNNY CAR CHAOS CHAMPIONSHIP TOUR (2021), this week at Eddyville Raceway Park (Oskaloosa, IA) with our southwestern correspondent and ace photographer BIG Bob Snyder on hand to provide us with news and photos of the action. Two qualifying sessions were run last night, with the second round run under the lights and there were some great performances from the 27 cars that made it to the starting line. We'll start with the first session photos, then fill in the details and get the second session posted later today.

There were four no-shows from the pre-entry list, with the "Chi-Town Hustler", owned and driven by Mike Minick having the tow rig break down enroute, while another nitro burner, Vic Tiffin in the "Gold Digger" was unable to appear due to a back injury. The other two no-shows, Robin Rish and Jim Hidy went AWOL and aren't on the next event pre-entry list either.

(LEFT) This is a weird looking photo, with smoke billowing off the tires, lots ofdeath smoke coming out of the pipes and a big redlight showing on the tree. It's hard to believe that Chuck Loftin could be having this much trouble on the launch in his "Motivation" Mustang, but judging by his #26 showing on the qualifying list with a 9.694 - 51.53, all the clues must add up to a wasted attempt and some wasted parts

(RIGHT) The surprise of the season is the string of strong performances out of what should be the most underpowered car in the field, but Jade Cook and her nitrous assisted "Nemesis" continuing to make good on that nickname for the car as her 4.388 - 156.47 effort put her solidly in the middle of the "B" field at #12

(LEFT) Making her series debut was Mary Reep in the flopper-bodied "Grim Reeper" after a decade or two of competing as an Outlaw Fuel Altered. She made her first passes count, finishing the day in the #7 spot on the list with a very good 4.096 - 181.97 pass to her credit

(RIGHT) Series regular Chris Schneider in the Troxel & Schneider "Brutus" put down a decent opening pass of 4.323 - 165.93 that left him in the #10 position, well into the "B" field going into Saturday's final qualifying session. As always, the fans loved his seriously smokey burnouts

(LEFT) After a strong performance at the season opener at the Texas Motorplex with several runs in the 3.80's, FCC sophomore Levi Keenen put down an excellent 3.892 - 189.47 in his "Illinois Thunder" Arrow that saw him finish the day in the #4 spot, in the middle of the "A" field

(RIGHT) We're not 100% certain that this is John Umlauf Jr. (or is it Sr.?) in the "Mass Chaos" car, but his name appeared well down the qualifying sheet in #20 at 4.697 - 101.90 and a spot near the bottom of the "C" field. This car has much more potential, but he's only got one more chance on Saturday to show what it's capable of

(LEFT) Getting more than a little sideways coming out of the water is the familiar "Wicked Weekender" of Oklahoma's Steve Vang, and he put himself near the top of the "B" field with a Friday best of 4.252 - 160.37, leaving him in the #9 position

(RIGHT) This is the first of the NHRA Top Alcohol "refugees" to show up in our coverage as the Williams Bros. team, with Kirk Williams driving blasted into the 3.70's for the provisional #1 qualifying spot at 3.732 - 200.62. In the final qualifying session tomorrow he will face Ken Singleton in the rain-delayed final round from the previous race at Odessa, TX

(LEFT) Blitzing the tires on a big burnout, the "Detroit Tiger" of Steve Timoszyk blasted out a 4.049 - 173.08 to place him in the #6 position and solidly into the "A" field as he returns to the FCC circuit after skipping the last two Texas events

(RIGHT) Making his first appearance at Funny Car Chaos, Michigander Phil Landram launches his Camaro-bodied "Easy Money 2.0" to a mediocre best for the day of 6.882 - 66.86 that ended up in the #25 spot on the list and just below the bottom of the "C" field. It may be the perspective from the angle of the car, but it appears that the body is much wider and a little longer than the chassis as the wheels are oddly inset front and rear

Here's two views of Chris Foster, burning out (left) and launching (right) in what he hopes will be "Everybody's Nightmare" as he returns to FCC for the first time since last season's visit to Eddyville. He's usually seen at NHRA races but likes to run with the Chaos crew when they come to Iowa, and he made a decent pass on Friday, despite shutting off early to a 4.342 - 129.80, good for #11 on the list and a spot in the "B" field

(LEFT) Warming the tires on the "Jake's Speed Shop" entry, Texan Jeff Cameron fell just short of the provisional "B" field, with a 17th best 4.513 - 149.60 pass leaving him well down the ladder

(RIGHT) Looking like the same story as Kirk Williams's as Robbie Massey made his first FCC start since last year's Eddyville race, with the expanded name "Moats & Massey & Grimm" on the car this year. Despite much race action over the past 18 months, Massey put down an excellent 3.875 - 190.19 that held up for the #3 on the ladder and possible lane choice in the first round of eliminations in the "A" field

(LEFT) Our last pair of cars in the first qualifying session featured another series newcomer and longtime NHRA Top Alcohol runner, Lance Van Hauen in the Van Hauen Bros. entry that didn't set the timers on fire with a first effort of 4.873 - 109.46 that left them in the #21 spot and in the middle of the "C" field

(RIGHT) Leaving hard in the beautiful "Man O' War" nitro-burning Mustang, Shayne Lawson broke into the 3-second zone with a very good 3.992 - 168.22, albeit with a slowing speed as he crossed the finish line. That placed him #5 on the list and well into the "A" field going into the evening session

Moving on to the second qualifying session, with cooler temperatures and presumably slightly better track conditions, we've got the under the lights shots to show you. With the longer days as we near the summer solstice, the skies don't get really dark as at the races earlier in the year, making for easier photography and better images. Even better, we've got lots of side-by-side shots in this batch. Since we don't know which session each racer turned their best times, we've only listed their best e.t.'s and speeds for the day.

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(LEFT) Coming out for his second shot at the track, Chris Foster in his black and red "Everybody's Nightmare" failed to improve on his earlier 4.342 - 129.80 clocking

(RIGHT) Here we've got Foster launching his Top Alcohol car in the near lane, while Levi Keenen in the "Illinois Thunder" is putting out some flames on the far side. As with Foster, he failed to improve on his earlier 3.892 - 189.47 clocking

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(RIGHT) Burning out before making his second qualifier, Kirk Williams in the "Williams Bros. Racing" entry stayed with his best of 3.732 - 200.62 and held down the #1 qualifying spot going into tomorrow's final qualifying session

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The latest update as of June 3, 2021

It seems like we've just barely finished posting the photos and some of the story from the Good Vibrations March Meet in May event and we're already prepping for this weekend's FUNNY CAR CHAOS event in Oskaloosa, Iowa, home of Eddyville Raceway Park, site of race #4 on the 2021 schedule for the FCC gang. Our photographer, Bob Snyder is already on site and will be sending us photos of all the action from Friday's qualifying and Saturday's final qualifying and eliminations. Then it's down the road a piece to Kearney, Nebraska's, Kearney Raceway Park for event #5 on the FCC schedule next weekend. It's going to be a busy month here, with even more race coverage coming from Bandimere Speedway over the next six weeks too. Stay tuned for all of that... and more.

For this weekend's FCC event at Eddyville, there are 31 cars pre-entered, including several newcomers to the circuit. Easily one of the most recognizable names from the history of Fuel Funny Car racing is the iconic "Chi-Town Hustler" and it will be there, driven by Mike Minick, the grandson of the original Chi-Town driver, Pat Minick. Joining the Hustler team will be another NHRA Top Alcohol "refugee" as Lance Van Hauen will bring his "little big show" car into the Chaos corral for the first time, joining Chris Foster, Kirk Williams and Bill Naves as four TA/FC's will compete with the assortment of blown fuel and alcohol and nitrous injected (Jade Cook and her "Nemesis" entry) cars for this event.

And as an added bonus, Wulff Pumps has stepped up with the money to support another "C" field, giving 24 cars a chance in eliminations. But wait... there's even more! There's four injected funny cars and a pair of Jet funny cars running too. It's guaranteed to be quite a show, and we can hardly wait for the first batch of photos from Big Bob tomorrow. Stay tuned for that and more this weekend.

The latest update as of May 31, 2021

We've got the first installment of photos from Sunday's eliminations at the Good Vibrations March/May Meet and they show most of the finals in the sportsman and some of the PRO categories. Our hard working correspondent started the long, hot drive home from Bakersfield at 4:00 a.m. today and won't be sending any more photos until at least tomorrow. That will give us a bit of time to catch up on all the great photos he sent us over the past week and fill in the blanks (details and captions) on the race. Stay tuned to this page for regular updates throughout the next few days.

(LEFT) Running all by himself at this point, as his red-lighting opponent kept the pedal to the metal, the Hot Rod Eliminator winner, Marvin Rules in his flamed '73 Vega took it easy enroute to the winner's circle with his 10.320 - 131.78 taking the automatic winlight

(RIGHT) The D/Gas final between Tony Citro in the '75 Camaro (near lane) and Don Fournier in his beautiful '48 Anglia (far lane), went to Fournier as his 10.631 - 112.49 was more than enough to cover Citro's slowing 10.904 - 95.35 pass

(LEFT) Doing almost everything right, by leaving first and running quicker, the runnerup in B/Gas, Val Miller in his sharp looking '71 Cuda, gave it all away with a breaking-out 8.572 - 154.37 against the 8.60-index, giving John Saliani (not shown) the win with his safe 8.649 - 156.05 effort

(RIGHT) In the A/Gas final, a pair of Chevys battled it out, with Roy Castagnetto in his '67 Nova (far lane) taking the win with a dead-on the index 7.600 - 174.05 run, as Rich Harrison and his '69 Camaro (near lane) was just a hair slower at 7.615 - 178.76 for the loss. Making the race even closer was the (.031 to .034) reaction time advantage which went to Harrison, making the finish line margin just twelve thousandths of a second

(LEFT) In a real old school-looking race, the Nostalgia Eliminator I final featured the winner, Steve Schoenfeld in his "Buddy's Toy Too" altered (near lane) running close to the 7.60 index, with his 7.634 - 165.31 coupled with a good reaction time of .030, forcing Dustin Lee (far lane) in his dragster into a breaking out 7.586 - 171.51 in a futile effort to overcome a slight reaction time disadvantage (.045 leave). It was close at the finish with just three hundredths separating the cars

(RIGHT) In Nostalgia Eliminator II, an 8.60 index class, winner Terri Scaduto (far lane) in her front-engined dragster took the win with a 8.604 - 156.57 pass over a breaking out Sam Tucker, as his 8.586 - 153.75 in his bright white '32 Bantam was just a little too quick. It was a close launch for the competitors, with Scaduto's .022 light just edging out Tucker's .030 leave. The margin at the finish line was only one hundredth of a second

(LEFT) The Nostalgia Eliminator III final featured a double breakout on the 9.60 index, with Don 'The Kid' Morris (near lane) the worst offender, giving away the win despite a 9.519 - 132.23 pass, and making Ed de Staute (far lane) with his 9.554 - 139.63 in his '59 'Vette. De Staute left first (.026 to .064) which made for a photo finish, with just .003 separating the cars at the stripe

(RIGHT) Moving up the performance ladder to Junior Fuel, the ageless veteran Don Enriquez, wheeled partner Bob McKray's dragster (near lane) to yet another winner's circle appearance, with his final round 7.229 - 185.54 (on a 7.14 index for the "C" class car) holding up for the win. In the far lane, runnerup Brad Woodard in his "A" class car, running on a 6.89 index, lost with a very good 6.975 - 189.66 effort. Showing that age hadn't slowed his reflexes, Enriquez left first on Woodard, by a margin of .018 to .025, and his small holeshot held up for a four thousandths of a second lead at the finish line

(LEFT) Here's the runnerup in the A/Fuel Dragster class, as Sabrina Capps left waaay too soon (-.253 redlight) and threw away a competitive 6.366 - 207.72 effort

(RIGHT) This photo clearly shows the big lead that Sabrina had due to her early leave, as the automatic winner, Kin Bates in his "U.S. Air Force" car, put down a very good 6.156 - 226.24 pass for the win

In case you're wondering what the Nitro Pro Comp category is all about: it's a grouping of what was intended to be a rear-engined Top Fuel class with specs from the first generation (1970's) of the back-motored diggers. They tried to promote it at the Hot Rod Reunion for a while, but never attracted more than a small handful of competitors. Now they've opened it up to the "homeless" dragsters, and the occasional flopper that can't run with the "big boys" in the Nitro Nostalgia Funny Cars class (AA/FC).

(LEFT) Here's the Nitro Pro Comp final, with Billy McDevitt in the "Borjon Auto Center" dragster (near lane) trailing perennial winner Mike Halstead in his "Mike's Transmissions" entry at the 1000 ft mark. After near identical reactions, Halstead coasted across the line with his 5.955 - 185.38 barely covering McDevitt's fast closing 5.990 - 237.92 pass. The gap at the 1320 mark was barely a car length

(RIGHT) We've got a single shot (so far) from the AA/Fuel Altered final round, with runnerup Johnny West up to speed in his "Plan 'A'". He lost due to a -.012 redlight and shut off to a coasting 7.157 - 140.93 as Eric Gates took the win at a leisurely 8.913 - 98.26 in his "Agent Orange" entry

Here's the CIFCA (California Injected Funny Car Association) "B" field final round, showing James Maher in the "Junior Vibes" '85 Ford Tempo (near lane) taking the win with a 7.143 - 186.30 (just over the 7.10 index) over Pete Ortiz Jr. (far lane) in his mean looking '97 Olds Cutlass "Outcast" who clocked a 7.382 - 192.28 in the losing effort. Making it close at the finish line was Ortiz's reaction time advantage (.046 to Maher's .161), which left Ortiz .128 behind at the quarter-mile mark

(LEFT) Seemingly running by himself, Adam Sorokin in the awesomely cool looking "Champion Speed Special" took an easy win (6.158 - 202.00) in the first round of Nostalgia Top Fuel (AA/FD) eliminations, as opponent, and top qualifier, Bret Williamson, in the "Forever Young" entry, smoked the tires and shut off to a 13-second clocking

(RIGHT) In the next pairing, Dan Horan Jr. (near lane) looks to be slightly ahead of opponent Frank McBee Jr. (far lane) as they pass half track

(LEFT) A closeup of Frank McBee Jr. as he speeds away

(RIGHT) Heading for the top end, it's Dan Horan Jr. (near lane) coming from behind to take a 5.824 - 244.25 win over the good effort of Frank McBee Jr. in the "Valley Thunder" (far lane), who trailed with a solid 5.954 - 248.75 clocking. Leaving first by an .052 to .125 margin, McBee came close to catching Horan at the finish line, but fell a little more than a car length short

(LEFT) We now move to the first round of eliminations for the AA/Fuel Altereds, running on a 6.00-index. In the first pair, it's Arlington, Washington's Tom Padilla in his "Red Dragon" (near lane) '27 T-truck pulling ahead of James Generalao Jr. and his "Impatient" entry, but breaking out in the process, wasting a fine 5.968 - 216.20 effort, to hand the default win to Generalao's slowing 7.349 - 124.59 run

(RIGHT) It looks like a bit of a runaway win for Pete Peterson (near lane) in his '48 Fiat Topolino in the next pair, but his just-too-quick 5.910 - 227.96 was another breakout (and low e.t. of the round). Taking the win was Eric Gates (far lane) in his "Agent Orange" '23 'T' with a decent 6.384 - 203.74 effort

(LEFT) In a first round battle in AA/Fuel Altered, Mark Whynaught in the sinister looking "Nitro Mamba" '23 "T" (near lane) took the win with a 6.109 - 202.97 over the breaking-out Nick VanHorn in the "Panic!" '32 Bantam (far lane), as his quicker 5.976 - 246.57 was just under the 6.00 index. Leaving .046 later than the winner, VanHorn really kept the pedal down, evidenced by the HUGE top end speed, in a futile effort to take the win

(RIGHT) Moving to the second round of eliminations (first round run Saturday evening), the Nostaliga Funny Cars (AA/Funny Cars) saw the pair of Kamaka Pocock in Don Nelson's "California Hustler" (near lane) matched up against the "Northwest Hitter" of Bucky Austin, wheeled by Bobby Cottrell. After a near even leave, Cottrell's low e.t. and top speed of the meet 5.605 - 262.64 covered Pocock's very game effort of 5.745 - 252.47 for the win and lane choice in the semis

The last pair of the round featured Michael Peck Jr. in the Quote Wizard-sponsored "Instigator" (near lane) taking an easy win over Brad Thompson (far lane) by a margin of 5.708 - 258.37 to the losing 6.458 - 158.84 for the "Jailbreak" Camaro. Despite a better reaction time (.047 to .111), the gap at the finish line was several train lengths as Thompson's car trailed several pistons worth of "death smoke" on the top end (right photo)

Moving on to Nostalgia Top Fuel (AA/Fuel Dragster), the first pair had Tyler Hilton in the Jim & Allison Lee-owned "Great Expectations III" running away from Jim Murphy and his "WW III" entry, taking the win decisively with a conservative 6.201 - 237.84 clocking against Murphy's coasting 12.469 - 68.39 effort. On the right, we see Hilton nearing the finish line

(LEFT) With only three cars in the Nitro Pro Comp class, there had to be a loser in the first round of eliminations, and it was Jeff Utterback in the "Advanced Surfaces" '74 Vega, dropping a not-even-close decision to Mike Halstead, as Utterback's 7.43 - 124.97 was a long way off the 5.90 class index.

(RIGHT) Seen here in the first round of eliminations, the eventual NE1 (Nostalgia Eliminator 1) winner, Steve Schoenfeld in the "Sonny's Toy Too" altered, as he tested the 7.60 index with a free pass when his opponent broke before staging. Schoenfeld's 7.598 - 174.62 was just two thousandths under the index to indicate that he was dialled in almost perfectly

The latest update as of May 30, 2021

In case you're wondering why we're not getting any top end shots or closeup starting line shots, there's two reasons: one, media credentials were allegedly in short supply (according to Famoso Dragway management), hence we have our correspondent shooting from the spectator side grandstands, and secondly, as you'll see in the photo below, there's a virtual tent city erected over the top rows of the pit side grandstand, preventing him from getting high enough above the track to get any really good shots.

You've got to get there pretty early in the morning to snag a spot at the top of the grandstands for your pop-up canopy

We've got photos from Saturday's final qualifying sessions, starting with Xtreme Pro Mods West, then moving right into the Nostalgia Funny Car & Top Fuel classes, followed by some of the California Injected Funny Car Association entrants, and finishing with the always popular and unpredictable AA/Fuel Altereds. Hope you enjoy them!

(LEFT) While not strictly speaking a nostalgia class, with the 2014 Challenger of Troy Ferry in the near lane, the Pro Mods put together a fairly tightly bunched field, with a quarter second separating the top seven qualifiers. Ferry's best time in qualifying was for the #7 position, while Jeremy Hanger in the Kirk Kuhns '59 Corvette held down the #3 spot with a solid 5.930 - 240.17 effort

(RIGHT) In the near lane, veteran Sean Renteria topped the field in his unique '65 Valiant with a very good that held up as low e.t. of the event. In the far lane, Josh Kalish nearly broke into the 5's with his '53 Studebaker, just falling short with a 6.027 - 239.48 to slot into the #6 spot on the ladder

(LEFT) Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of Brad Thompson's System One sponsored "Jailbreak" car, but we managed to snag a pic of his helpful BUG (Back-Up Girl). We can however, report that she must have helped as Brad snuck into the bump spot with an improved 6.033 - 211.96 that was good enough to anchor the field

(RIGHT) The first pair of cars we can show from the final AA/Funny Car qualifying session are Billy Morris and his Camaro-bodied "Problem Child" in the near lane, paired up with the Northwest's Michael Peck Jr. in the Quote Wizard-backed "Instigator". Morris stepped up in a big way on his last shot, climbing from the #19 spot all the way to #6 with a very good 5.727 - 247.02, while Peck picked up a tenth and five mph, to move from #12 to #8 on the final qualifying list

(LEFT) One of the longest competing Funny Car teams in the pits, the Van Gundy, Clark & Monise group, with their iconic "Quarter Pounder" (near lane), were barely hanging on to a spot in the field with a 15th best 6.098 - 219.40 from Friday, but they pumped up the volume to the tune of a 5.813 - 232.75 to move up to #13 in the field. In the far lane, the "Cacklin' Critter" Challenger of Matt Melendez kept the throttle open to the finish line, picking up a full tenth from his Friday best of 5.923 to a #15 qualifying 5.852 - 233.20

(RIGHT) Running by himself in a last ditch attempt to stay in the field, Terry Jongewaard in the '79 Omni failed to hang onto to the bump spot (from Friday) as he couldn't improve on his earlier 6.136 - 232.43 and ended the weekend in the 2nd alternate spot and an early trip home

(LEFT) Before we move on to the Top Fuel Dragsters, Don Nelson's "California Hustler", with Hawaiian import Kamaka Pocock at the wheel,

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The latest update as of May 29, 2021

Returning to the nostalgia ranks for a one-shot appearance was Jason Rupert, filling in for the unavailable owner/driver of his former ride (Pete Espeseth), as Jason made his first pass in his old car in two and a half years. Showing absolutely no rust after his long layoff, Rupert pushed his old mount to a 5.719 - 254.42 on his first pass

The latest update as of May 28, 2021

We've fallen victim to a modern inconvenience: a sloooooowwww wi-fi connection at the motel, as Dale Fackler is slowly sending us the results of all his hard work from the grandstands at Bakersfield yesterday. We've got one photo so far, with Dylan Winefsky making a test pass in father Robert's "Nitro Moose" AA/Fuel Altered. The plan is for 16-year old Dylan to finish licensing in Tucson, then take over the reins from his dad, who's making his final driving appearance at this year's Good Vibrations March Meet.

Making one of his first launches in a seriously powerful AA/FA, young Dylan tests the Famoso traction

We lead off today's photo coverage of the March Meet with the always popular 7.0 PRO class, then it's straight into Junior Fuel, followed by A/Fuel Dragster. Note that two combinations are allowed in A/Fuel: injected on nitro or blown on alcohol. Junior Fuel is just injected nitro with small block (mostly Chevy) engines.

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(LEFT) Making another pass in his 7.0 PRO '32 Bantam roadster, Vince Generalao Jr. lights up the hides on the burnout

(RIGHT) Bannering a name that's been around the sport of drag racing since the 1950's (!), Chris Bates is wheeling the "Boudakian Racing" 7.0 Pro '23 "T" roadster

(LEFT) Ageless veteran Don Enriquez is still at it, and very competitive, in his Junior Fueler

(RIGHT) Coming all the way from Melbourne, Australia is Shayne Stewart (near lane) and he lights the tires right off the line in his A/FD, while in the far lane, Arizona's Rick Ewens leaves hard with the tires hooked up

(LEFT) In the near lane, Kris Krabill got acclimated to his new ride in the "Screamer", with a half track pass (6.79 - 139.06, while in the far lane, Matt Melendez carded a solid 5.90 - 230.61 in the "Cacklin' Critter" Challenger

(RIGHT) Two more of the regulars on the Heritage Series circuit came out next, with Billy Morris in the "Problem Child" Camaro (near lane), while Matt Bynum (far lane) wheeled the "Cecil Matthews Motorsports" entry to an early shutoff 6.16 - 183.22

A great looking side-by-side battle between veteran flopper and digger pilot Dan Horan (Jr.) in the "Infinity Plumbing" Camaro (near lane) and rookie Kamaka Pocock in Don Nelson's "California Hustler" ended a little early Pocock as he shut off early to a 6.04 - 197.48 clocking, while Horan drove it all the way through the lights to a big number of 5.59 - 260.11 on his first test run

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(RIGHT) Las Vegas resident James Generalao Jr. tested the 6.00-index for the AA/Fuel Altereds and found he had a little too much power as he clocked a "breaking-out" 5.89 - 211.36 despite lifting off the loud pedal at the 1000 ft mark

(LEFT) Bringing out the "Capitol Punishment" Camaro for the first time in more than a year, Tony Jurado put down a very impressive 5.75 - 222.66 even though he was off the throttle early

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Getting in a solid pass was Jim Murphy in his WW III entry as he laid down a 5.91 - 249.53 (near lane), while on the far side, the unique looking and sounding (small-block Chevy power) "Champion Speed Shop Special" driven by Adam Sorokin shut off early to a 6.48 - 162.18

The latest update as of May 27, 2021

It's May 27th today... and here we are featuring the Good Vibrations March Meet being held in late May for the first - and hopefully last - time of the year. Our Colorado correspondent made the trek across the mountains from the Denver area to sunny central California, and the warm environs of Famoso Dragway in beautiful Kern County. Yesterday's early test 'n' tune saw numerous cars testing the track; most for the first time in 2021, and for some, the first time in nearly a full year. We've got the first batch - of what promises to be many - photos coming to Northern Thunder over the weekend. Remember to keep refreshing the page each time you visit to see the latest additions to our coverage.

Racers from the Group 1 & 2 categories were allowed to make two test passes yesterday, and today all racers, except Top Fuel and Funny Car make their first qualifying runs. The nitro racers have a test session in the late afternoon, early evening hours and that promises to be quite a prelude to the full-on action that starts tomorrow.

We start our coverage with two pics of Johnny Kirschenman in his - and I'm just guessing here - '55 T-Bird flopper. He runs as part of the CIFCA (California Injected Funny Car Association) and they will be an official eliminator category at this year's running of the March Meet. While some of the cars are still injected, most are running blown alcohol engines as the group is trying to stay relevant in this age of very fast race cars

(LEFT) Another of the CIFCA cars, this time Rick Alvarado and his "Little Mighty Mouse" entry

(RIGHT) We move to a Nostalgia Eliminator 1, with Sabrina Pecora in her '37 Fiat Topolino (near lane) lined up against an unidentified early Hemi-powered dragster in the far lane. These cars run on a 7.60 index

(LEFT) Moving down one notch to Nostalgia Eliminator 2 (running on an 8.60 index) we've got Jim Miller in his "Compulsive Obsession" '29 Ford Roadster (near lane) paired up with an unidentified stretched altered in the far lane

(RIGHT) It's Robert Johnson in his injected dragster (near lane) running against Steve Olmscheid's '23 Ford altered "Bad Ass" in the far lane

(LEFT) It's "Kin Hee's Revenge" (hard to decipher the Olde English script) and the competition number isn't in my database (aka: Drag Race Central)

(RIGHT) We've got the details on this pair: George Chatterton in his '37 Fiat Topolino "Hitman" (near lane) and Adam Westbrook in his '32 Bantam roadster (far lane)

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Stay tuned all weekend as there's much, MUCH, MUCH more to come.

The latest update as of May 25, 2021

We received a bonus in the email inbox this morning: a set of pics from Saturday's "Napa Auto Parts Night of Fire & Thunder" event held waaay up on the mountain at Bandimere Speedway (Morrison, CO). Besides a host of NHRA classes, a pair of Quick & Fast 16 eliminators, a pair of Jet Dragsters, the feature was eight honest-to-goodness nitro-burning AA/Fuel Altereds. It was a cold evening and the fuel altereds only got to make one pass, but there were some great runs and lots of exciting action. Check out the latest from our High Country correspondent, Dale B. Fackler.

PS: An even bigger bonus is that he sent these photos while enroute - no, not while he has driving - to Bakersfield, CA. Can you guess why? Yes, it's the 63rd annual Good Vibrations March Meet, running (hopefully!) for the first and last time in May. While spectator attendance is limited, and media credentials are virtually nonexistent, Dale is taking his long lenses up to the grandstands and we hope to see some more of his great work throughout the coming weekend and on into next week.

Then our Southwestern correspondent, BIG Bob Snyder takes over as he hits the highway for the loooong drive from Phoenix to Oskaloosa, IA for the next event on the FUNNY CAR CHAOS calendar, from Eddyville Raceway Park. But wait, there's more! He's staying in the midwest for the following week's FCC event at Kearney Raceway Park (Kearney, NE). Then we flip back to the NHRA regional event Thunder on the Mountain at Bandimere Speedway on the following week (June 18-19). Looks like we're going to be a little busy over the next month.... despite a total lack of drag racing up here in the "Great White North". One of these days... weeks... months... years?

Leading off the AA/Fuel Altered show was the well known local Jackson family team, with Keith Jackson at the wheel of their "High Heaven". His run was somewhat off-pace, shutting off early to a 7.058 - 136.83 time, and falling to Keith Wilson's (not shown) much better 6.175 - 236.54 effort in the "Witch Doctor" Fiat

(LEFT) Itinerant fuel driver, Roger "Radar" Lechtenberg (near lane) starts his burnout in the "Nitro Madness" Fiat, next to opponent Neil Hinman (far lane). Lechtenberg took a decisive win with a solid 6.373 - 217.21 over Hinman's trailing 8.421 - 98.48 clocking

(RIGHT) Here's a nice shot of Hinman launching hard, with the wheels up against Lechtenberg

Here's two more shots of Hinman as he continues downtrack with the front wheels still in the air. He finally gave up the chase and brought the front end down, coasting to the finish line and an 8-second timeslip

(LEFT) The next pair featured two veterans of the sport, with Jim Maroney (currently running NHRA Top Fuel) driving Jim Broome's "Speed Sport Special" (recreating a very famous name from the early days of fuel racing in the late 1950's), and he cranked out a very good 6.094 - 230.06 pass

(RIGHT) Running alongside him - at least for the first few hundred feet - was Johnny West, current tuner for several NHRA Big Show cars, and his Plan "A" "hobby car", but he was off the throttle early, shutting down to a 6.648 - 149.78 timeslip

Here's another view of the Plan "A" as it marches down track

The last pair of fuel altereds saw Lyle Greenberg running a single, as opponent Sean Cash broke after the burnout. Greenberg didn't spare the horses as he pushed the "Cone Hunter" to a career best 5.833 - 240.81 to set low e.t. and top speed of the event. The numbers eclipsed his best effort of 5.84 in the Top Alcohol Funny Car that he used to run

Another view of Greenberg heading towards the top end, and the scoreboards lighting up the best numbers of the evening

(LEFT) Looking for all the world like he should be in the Fuel Altered show, Joe Percoco was running his "Bat Outta Hell" blown alcohol altered in the Madcap Racing Engine Fast 16 eliminator, and he ran well in qualifying, with a 6.62 - 210.82 in Q1, and a 6.589 - 197.80 in Q2. Unfortunately, a redlight in the first round of eliminations ended his evening, despite running an even better 6.572 - 206.35 for the loss

(RIGHT) Having worse luck was Shawn Fisk in his clean looking front-engined dragster, as he broke before staging in Q1, then shut off (or broke) early in Q2 with a 7.655 - 145.38 coming up on the scoreboards. With 44 cars attempting to fit into 16 spots in the field, and an eventual bump spot of 7.013, his evening was over early.

One side note to the Fast 16 field: Besides a Funny Car Chaos regular, Tom Furches, in his "Made in America" Funny Car, there were two women competing who had very familiar names, at least to High Country fuel racing afficianados. Betsy Peek and Debbie Renck. The Peek Brothers Top Fuel team ran for many years until the early 2000's, with their biggest achievement being arunner-up finish at the 1996 NHRA U.S. Nationals with rookie driver Tony Schumacher behind the wheel. The Renck name is famous for long-time Colorado fuel racer Ed Renck, who was the Division Five Top Fuel champion several times and qualified at numerous national events.

(LEFT) We finish this report with the pyrotechnic portion of the event, with the Jet Dragsters "Volcano" (near lane) lighting it up against the "Wicked Sensation" (far lane)

(RIGHT) A very excited young spectator is in seventh heaven soaking in all the sights and sounds of the fast... faster... fastest cars, courtesy of her grandfather

The latest update as of May 24, 2021

A wild, wet weekend at Baytown, Texas' Houston Raceway Park finally wrapped up when the a-day-late MOPAR Express Lane SpringNationals presented by Pennzoil was completed earlier this afternoon under threatening skies and in front of a minimal audience. Thankfully, the rain held off long enough to finish eliminations and send everyone home to rest up until the next event on the 2021 NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series schedule.

With our emphasis at Northern Thunder on the Top Alcohol categories, we've posted the updated points standings both the Dragster and Funny Car categories (see below). In the meantime, we can give you some of the details on how the two categories fared at the weather affected event. With just twelve Dragsters and only seven Funny Cars in the pits, it wasn't guaranteed to be a BIG show, but what it lacked in numbers, it certainly made up for in quality.

In Top Alcohol Dragster, the first eight qualifiers - in the one and only qualifying session - were in the 5.20's, with the top half of the field anchored with newcomer Madison Payne's career best 5.256 - 260.06 pass. In case you're wondering, she is the daughter of longtime and recently retired Top Alcohol and Funny Car racer Jay Payne and Shelly Payne (nee Anderson). In case you don't remember, Shelly was a very competitive Top Fuel driver in the 1990's and the daughter of legendary parts manufacturer Brad Anderson. Quite a racing pedigree for young Madison.

Leading the qualifying list was one of the three blown alky cars, that of perennial national championship bridesmaid Shawn Cowie with a very quick 5.224 - 275.62 from his Mundie's Towing entry. He kept up the pace in the first round as he easily dispatched Karl Brounkowsku with a consistent 5.225 at a slightly early shutoff 266.53 speed. But in a portent of things to come, Cowie only had the second quickest run of the round as Rachel Meyer turned up the wick to a 5.195 at a booming 280.49 mph for low e.t. and top speed... so far.

In the second round, Cowie earned a bye run into the final (due to the odd-lot 12-car field), and stayed right in the 5.20 groove, clocking an excellent to oust another of the A/Fuel hitters, Robin Samsel. Again, it was only second quickest of the round as Ms. Meyer put down a 5.200, at an even bigger 280.95 mph to move into the semi-finals.

Cowie didn't take it easy on his semi-final bye run as he laid down another great 5.222 - 274.50 to move into the finals. However, his opponent for that round, Rachel Meyer, laid down the bomb of the event, obliterating Jasmine Salinas' good 5.266 - 260.26, with a near career best of 5.143 - 282.01 to re-set low e.t. and top speed, and take lane choice for the final.

Knowing they were going to have to go for broke to have a chance in the final, crew chief Norm Grimes dialled in a little too much of something as the car shook hard before clearing the 60' clocks. Cowie did a quick pedal job and stayed on it to the finish line, clocking a speed of 270.21, but coupled with a 5.632 e.t. In the other lane, Ms. Meyer turned on the winlight with another huge run, slightly slower at 5.150 - 279.32 to take the event win and close the gap on the national points leader Jackie Fricke in the process.

Over on the Top Alcohol Funny Car side of the pits, the nine pre-entered cars became only seven when qualifying started, and just five when eliminations began on Monday morning. It's becoming rather concerning with the low Funny Car entry counts on the national and regional level, and we will write about what's happening in that regard soon. Meanwhile, to the SpringNationals story for the floppers. The two cars that withdrew from the race after qualifying were the husband and wife J&A Services team from Colorado, Jim and Annie Whiteley. With business interests to tend to, and no guarantee that eliminations would even be completed on Monday, they made the decision to load up and head home on Sunday.

That resulted in three bye runs and a single pair on Monday, leaving quite a hole in the show. While the cars that remained included some of the top runners in the class, the entertainment value was somewhat limited. Qualifying saw two of the top three drivers in the national points standings matching wheels and producing a great side-by-side 5.496 - 267.22 for defending series champion Doug Gordon, and a very close 5.497 - 266.95 for serious contender Bob McCosh Jr.. Next on the list - and well back in performance - was Annie Whiteley, at 5.574, and from there, two cars were in the 5.60's, with the balance trailing far behind.

The only pairing of the first round saw former national champion (2017), Shane Westerfield break into 5.40-zone, with a best of the round 5.487 - 268.01, which temporarily set top speed of the meet. McCosh and Gordon kept pace with 5.50 and 5.51 passes, respectively on their bye runs. In the semi-finals, things tightened considerably, with Nick Januik surprising McCosh with his best run in quite a while, at 5.478 - 265.06 to take a holeshot win over McCosh's effort. In the other pairing, Doug Gordon moved into the final with low e.t. of the meet at 5.445 - 268.23 to dispatch Westerfield's good - but not good enough - 5.528 - 268.17 pass.

The favourite going into the final was points leader Gordon, but Januik gave him a serious scare, leaving first by a .034 to .062 margin, then holding the lead until well past the 1000' mark. Gordon nipped him at the finish line by only .004 for the winlight, with a 5.468 - 268.49 clipping Januik's very good 5.500 - 265.85 for the event win.

The next national event for the Top Alcohol cars is the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Norwalk, OH in late June, but there are regional events scheduled at Reading, PA, Seattle, WA, and Denver, CO in the weeks preceding that race. Stay tuned for updates to the points standings coming almost weekly over the next few months.

The latest update as of May 18, 2021

We've got the photos from Saturday's eliminations at the FUNNY CAR CHAOS event at Penwell Knights Raceway in Odessa, TX. Despite threatening weather, the first two rounds and two out of the three finals were run before the rain took over and put a halt to the proceedings. The "A" field final will be run during the final qualifying session at the next event on the FCC tour, Eddyville Raceway Park.

Here's a shot of one of the non-qualifiers, as Scott "Nitro Mafia" Cousimano could only manage a "best" of 6.252 - 80.62 in qualifying. This picture pretty much sums up the trouble that the "WTF Racing" team was facing. Note the throttle position - wide OPEN - and the flames coming out under the body and through the front wheel wells. Looks like it's back to the drawing board for the Fuller & Cousimano team

Qualifying Session #3 (FINAL)

Before the final qualifying session began for the Funny Cars, a variety of support classes took to the track, and not all met with great success, as can be seen here. On the (LEFT) it appears that the "Bad Boyz" Chevy II had a "minor" nitrous malfunction, while on the (RIGHT), the Camaro SS has some directional control issues, as the obviously overpowered narrow slicks are not gripping the track very well

(LEFT) It was a case of "good news, bad news" for Steve Vang as he did improve on Friday's best of 4.442, running nearly a tenth quicker and a bunch faster, at 4.358 - 161.00, but he only improved from the #15 to #14 on the ladder and stayed near the bottom of the "B" field

(RIGHT) This is something you don't see every day (thank goodness!) at the track, as a faux Roman Centurion appears to be threatening Chris Schneider to do a good burnout before his final qualifying pass

(LEFT And it gets worse, as the "BUB" (Back-Up Bob) moves into action, directing Schneider into the best launch position

(RIGHT) With his "helper" safely removed from the starting line, Schneider moves into stage, but all the assistance he was given was no help as he failed to improve on Friday's best of 4.666 - 144.00 and fell from the #20 to #22 on the qualifying sheet

(LEFT It was a case of one step forward... two steps back, as Nick Johnson picked up a "nickel" from Friday's 4.596 to a slightly improved 4.543 - 152.03 in his last qualifier, but he dropped two positions, from #18 to #20, to the middle of the "C" field

(RIGHT) Maintaining his spot (#25) but managing to sneak into the bottom of the "C" field was Damon Kuhn as he got in due to Tod Barker's breakage. He did pick up quite a bit from Friday's sub-par 5.502 - 125.10 results, to a 5.177 - 132.39, but it was for naught as other racers stepped up also

(LEFT He didn't stand pat on his previous runs, but Jordan Ballew's improved 4.662 - 149.06 still left him in the #21 spot and in the middle of the "C" field

(RIGHT) Unable to move up as he wasn't able to better Friday's 4.244 - 165.99, the "Northland Express" dropped one spot to #12 and put Mitch Bowen in the middle of the "B" field

(LEFT In yet another case of step up or move backwards, Daniel Butherus stayed stuck on his previous best of 4.494 - 159.18 which moved him down to #19, and a spot near the top of the "C" field

(RIGHT) Another one of the "failed to improve" bunch was Lynn Logue in his "Back in Black" entry, as his Friday numbers of 4.932 - 146.72 saw him drop one spot to #23, near the bottom of the "C" field

(LEFT One car/driver that did improve was the Mustang-bodied "Man O' War" of Shayne Lawson as he jumped all the way from #12 to #6 and a spot in the "A" field, courtesy of a strong 4.021 - 184.96 pass

(RIGHT) Unable to improve on her Friday best of 4.029 - 174.76, and consequently dropping two spots from #5 to #7, Nancy Matter remained in the "A" field but faced with a very tough opponent (Ken Singleton) in her first round match

(LEFT Improving by nearly two tenths, from his Friday 4.440 - 158.39 to a 4.264 - 163.99, the "Thunderin' Okie" of Bob Alberty Jr. only picked up one spot to #13 for the first round of eliminations

(RIGHT) Not having the same luck, but still in a very good qualifying position, Doug Schneider's Friday best of 3.959 - 180.14 moved down to the #3 spot in the top half of the "A" field

(LEFT The "Red Baron", driven by "reformed" AA/Fuel Altered pilot Jody Austin didn't improve on Friday's 3.985 - 178.50 clocking and dropped down one spot from #4 to #5, losing lane choice in the first round of "A" field eliminations

(RIGHT) No improvement on Friday's numbers for Andy Mears meant that the "Dragon Slayer" slipped down the charts two spots (from #18 to #20) and out of the bottom of the "B" field into the top of the "C" group

(LEFT After a miserable Friday, with a 5.014 - 97.95 best, Bill Bernard cranked up the volume in the last session with a better 4.450 - 126.09 that showed there was a lot left in the tank, judging by the early shutoff speed

(RIGHT) Treading water and staying in the #24 spot, Dustin Bradford kept his "American Dream" alive by improving more than a quarter of a second to a 5.039 - 141.46 clocking

Pre-Race Ceremonies

Despite skies that looked a little gloomy, the pre-race ceremonies of an invocation, the national anthem, and the sweet sound of "Fire the first pair!" rang out over the P.A. system, signalling the start of eliminations

Eliminations - Round One - "A" Field

(LEFT) First out of the lanes were the #1 and #8 qualifiers in the "A" field, with Kirk Williams in the far lane putting down an excellent 3.912 - 193.05 to take out Nick Poloson's (near lane) close - but not close enough - 4.061 - 177.87 effort. Poloson left first, by three hundreths of a second, but the gap at the finish line was nearly three car lengths

(RIGHT) It wasn't scheduled to be a bye run, but when Jody Austin failed to show in the broken "Red Baron", it gave a free pass to the semi-final to Eric Eoff and he took it easy with a 17-second pass at 37 mph to save on the equipment for the next round's match against Kirk Williams

(LEFT) The next race saw the #3 and #6 cars paired up, with a little more than five hundredths (3.95 to 4.02) separating them in qualifying. Both drivers were sharp on the tree, with Shayne Lawson (near lane) leaving first by an .043 to .047 margin, but he ran into trouble downtrack and shut off to a losing 4.636 - 123.97. Taking the win in the far lane with a much better 3.995 - 177.44 time was Colorado's Doug Schneider in his NHRA Top Alcohol flopper

(RIGHT) Finishing out the first round was defending FCC series champion, Ken Singleton, (near lane) as he took a close decision based on elapsed times over Nancy Matter in the far lane. The big winning margin at the finish line for Singleton came largely from a huge reaction time advantage, as he cut a decent .097 light against Matter's rather sleepy .201 launch. The timeslip difference was much less, as Singleton's 3.960 - 190.52 covered Matter's 4.016 - 184.20, but it was all about the reaction times in this race

Eliminations - Round One - "B" Field

With a spread of four tenths of a second (4.062 - 4.467) between the eight cars in the "B" field, the "index" was set at 3.862, two tenth of a second less than the top qualifer's e.t. The intent of the index is to minimize the possibility of someone "sandbagging" in qualifying, then blowing everyone out of the water with much quicker runs during eliminations. One small caveat: the index is abandoned for the final round. It's all-out for the win then.

(LEFT) Leading off the "B" field were the #4 and #5 qualifiers, with Bob Alberty Jr. (near lane) overcoming a tardy reaction time (.223) to overcome Mitch Bowen's (far lane) much quicker leave (.084). The e.t.'s and speeds were all in Alberty's favour, as his 4.332 - 162.10 easily covered Bowen's slowing 5.129 - 107.07 clocking

(RIGHT) Next up were the #3 and #6 qualifiers, separated in qualifying by nearly two tenths, with Jeff Cameron (far lane) holding the performance advantage over Steve Vang (near lane). Vang led Cameron off the starting line (.087 to .121), but the scoreboards told a different tale as Cameron's 4.437 - 157.84 gave him the victory over Vang's 4.571 - 121.56. The margin at the stripe was a tenth of a second; just two car lengths

(LEFT) With the withdrawal of Tod Barker from the field due to breakage, surprising newcomer Jade Cook (near lane) moved up to the #8 position in the "B" field and found herself matched up with top qualifier Tim Boychuk. Running a carbureted nitrous assisted big-block Chevy, against the blown fuel Hemi of Boychuk, she left first by two hundredths (.099 to .119), then played "Jill the Giant Killer" by outrunning her heavily favoured opponent, 4.441 - 154.53 to the close, but losing, 4.512 - 163.34 effort of Boychuk. The gap at the finish line was roughly two car lengths

(RIGHT) Finishing out the opening round were the #2 and #7 cars, with Tom Furches (far lane) holding a nearly three tenths advantage in qualifying over Bill Bernard (near lane). But when it counted, Bernard turned on the (NHRA Top Alcohol) "big show" power and ran away from Furches, taking nearly a full tenth of a second lead on the launch (.037 to .128) and lengthening it all the way down track to take a decisive 4.016 - 169.17 win over Furches' losing 4.248 - 170.58 effort

Eliminations - Round One - "C" Field

(LEFT) Leading off the "C" field eliminations was Jordan Ballew on a bye run, as scheduled opponent Chris Schneider was unable to show, allowing Ballew an (almost) automatic advancement to the semifinals, and he took it easy, with a leisurely leave (.259 r.t.) and turned on the winlight with a 4.707 - 148.32 clocking

(RIGHT) The first pair of the round were the #1 and #8 cars, with a nearly seven tenths gap between them in qualifying, and that margin held in this race, as Andy Mears (far lane) laid down a solid 4.469 - 151.31 to leave Damon Kuhn (near lane) far behind as he could only muster a 5.404 - 108.10 time. Making the race look even more one-sided was the (.012 to .408) reaction time advantage for Mears

(LEFT) With nearly half a second advantage in qualifying times, Nick Johnson (near lane) didn't have to push the tree, but he nearly went too far, clocking a nearly unbelievable .0009 reaction time to open up a sizeable lead instantly over Lynn Logue's (far lane) much slower .191 launch. Johnson stopped the clocks with a 4.562 - 151.31 to trainlength Logue's 4.868 - 146.34 numbers

(RIGHT) Closing out the first round of eliminations, the #2 and #7 qualifiers met, with Daniel Butherus (far lane) leaving second (.127 to .061), but finishing first over Dustin Bradford (near lane), taking the winlight with a 4.636 - 145.96 to handle the much slower 5.031 - 142.63 pass of the "American Dream" 'Cuda

Before the final rounds started, someone at the far end of the track phoned in a RUSH order for a pizza, and the local Domino's franchise was only too happy to oblige, with their promised rapid delivery. With the 1/8-mile racing distance, it looked like their motto was "FIVE seconds... or less... or it's on us!"

Eliminations - Round Two - "A" Field

(LEFT) Getting down to the serious business of the semi-finals, Doug Schneider (near lane) took on Ken Singleton (far lane) and together they put on the best side-by-side match of the evening, leaving almost together (.035 to .038 r.t.'s, favouring Schneider). It was a different story at the finish line as Singleton took the winlight with a best of eliminations 3.904 - 192.97 that just nipped Schneider's 3.986 - 185.57. The true win margin was little more than a car length

(RIGHT) The other half of the semis featured Eric Eoff (near lane) and Kirk Williams (far lane), and it was the NHRA Top Alcohol car taking the win to advance to his first Funny Car Chaos final round. From the picture it's obvious that Williams opened a considerable margin over Eoff right off the starting line, as "Shazam!" was in trouble very quickly and slowed to a 11.064 - 50.77 losing pass, initiated with a slow reaction time (.167). Williams really turned up the wick with a new low e.t. and top speed of the meet at 3.877 - 196.42 to earn lane choice for the final

Eliminations - Round Two - "B" Field

(LEFT) Earning the first berth in the "B" final was Jeff Cameron (near lane) as he took care of opponent Bill Bernard (far lane), despite Bernard's very quick 3.937 - 174.49 pass. Bernard left first by a margin of .080 to .181, but threw it all away when he took out the finish line timing cone, disqualifying him and preventing Cameron from receiving an e.t. or speed

(RIGHT) The other racer to advance to the finals was the hard running newcomer Jade Cook (near lane) as she dispatched the "Thunderin' Okie" of Bob Alberty Jr. to move into her second final in a row, and put herself into the top ten in the points standings. She left first with a great reaction of .033, to Alberty's .053, then outran him to the stripe 4.428 - 155.82 to the losing 4.803 - 151.98 for Alberty

Eliminations - Round Two - "C" Field

(LEFT) Moving down to the "C" field, we can see Nick Johnson (near lane) opening up a sizeable lead right off the starting line, but he left a redlight on the tree, wasting a decent 4.634 - 152.08 pass with a -.189 reaction time. Opponent Daniel Butherus (far lane) took the win with a 4.587 - 155.71 pass and advanced to the final for the second consecutive event

(RIGHT) Taking the other spot in the "C" final was Jordan Ballew (near lane) as he took out the "Dragon Slayer" of Andy Mears for the win on a holeshot. Ballew's .043 to .095 reaction time advantage made his 4.516 - 155.01 turn on the winlight over the very close 4.471 - 158.23 of Mears, for the closest decision of eliminations, with just .005 separating them as they crossed the finish line

Eliminations - Final Rounds

(LEFT) With the threatening skies putting a few raindrops on the track, it was a battle between Mother Nature and the track crew to keep things running, but they were able to prevail for the first two ("C" and "B") final rounds. Taking the first winlight was Jordan Ballew (near lane) as he lit up the scoreboards, defeating opponent Daniel Butherus to take home the points, the bucks and the trophy. Both drivers redlighted, but "first or worst" prevailed, and Butherus's -.079 reaction was worse than Ballew's -.006 leave. Ballew kept his foot in it to clock a 4.609 - 154.16 pass, while Butherus coasted through at 6.433 - 71.60

(RIGHT) What turned out to be the last race of the event was the "B" final, as Jade Cook (far lane) took her first Funny Car Chaos event win over Jeff Cameron (near lane) and showed how far she has come in just a few months. The numbers indicate that both drivers were unable to hook up on the slick track, but Cook's 6.606 - 67.76 prevailed over Cameron's 7.609 - 67.58 pass. And as she did all night, she left first by a .071 to .167 margin

(LEFT) After dodging the rain drops for the first two final rounds, the track crew just couldn't keep up with the precipitation, and following a conference on the starting line between series promoter Chris Graves, and the crews of the "High Risk" (Ken Singleton) and "Williams Bros. Racing" (Kirk Williams), it was agreed to postpone the "A" field final until the next event at Eddyville Raceway Park (June 4-5th)

(RIGHT) Never one to give up easily, especially after a 700+ mile drive to the track, BIG Bob Snyder hung around under the protective covering of the timing tower until the official decision to call the event came down

The latest update as of May 17, 2021

While we're waiting for the Saturday photos from the FUNNY CAR CHAOS event at Penwell Knights Raceway, we've got the latest updated points standings for NHRA Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car. They include the results from the South Central Regional at the Texas Motorplex and the NGK NTK NHRA Four-Wide Nationals from Charlotte's Z-Max Dragway. For a larger, and easier to read, view of the standings, just click on the graphics.

NOTE: Points in red are those waived by the racers, and the entry list for this coming weekend's MOPAR Express Lane NHRA SpringNationals (Houston, TX) is as of 9:00 AM PST. The entry deadline for the event is later today but it looks like short fields in each of the alcohol categories, with just ten Funny Cars and twelve Dragsters.

While we're posting points standings, here's the latest numbers from the FUNNY CAR CHAOS crew, with the Top Twenty drivers listed. While there are eight races on the schedule, the FCC uses a "drop" race for the final points calculation, which means the lowest points earning event for each racer is dropped from their final total. If a racer doesn't attend one (or more) races on the calendar, that counts as their drop(ped) event. These results are provided with the kind courtesy of Funny Car Chaos

The latest update as of May 16, 2021

The FUNNY CAR CHAOS season continues with the third (of eight) events, this time at Penwell Knights Raceway at the Caprock Motorplex in Odessa, TX. With 28 cars on the pre-entry list, the three field format - which looks like it could be a semi-permanent fixture at these races - was in place. We've got the first set of photos from our "road warrior" BIG Bob Snyder, taken during the first qualifying session on Friday evening. We'll try to get the second session shots up later this evening, and hopefully the pictures and all the details from Saturday's final qualifier and eliminations on Monday.. or Tuesday. It all depends on how long it takes Bob to get home, get some sleep, and download the cache in his camera. Stay tuned!

Friday - Qualifying Session #1

Before it got loud and fast, everyone stood for the playing of the "Star Spangled Banner"

(LEFT) The first qualifying session got underway on Friday evening with Jordan Ballew sporting a new Camaro body on his well-known "Ballew Thunder" entry. His best effort of the evening was a decent 4.750 - 144.97, placing him in the #21 position on the qualifying list

(RIGHT Burning out to start his weekend, Nick Johnson in the Reinart & Johnson "Prairie Fire" entry saw a 4.596 - 149.20 come up on the scoreboards that was only good enough for the #18 spot on the qualifying list

(LEFT) The old-school "Brutus" Mustang of Troxel & Schneider, driven by Chris Schneider rang up a slightly slower 4.666 - 144.00 to slot into the #20 spot on the list

(RIGHT) Quickly climbing up the charts, rookie Jade Cook made her opening statement in the "Nemesis with a solid 4.617 - 147.30 pass that put her solidly (#19) into the "C" field

(LEFT) Despite a solid launch, Damon Kuhn's unique looking "Passin' Gas" faded later in the run, posting only a Friday best of 5.502 - 125.10, leaving him on the outside of the three fields, sitting in the #25 spot going into Saturday afternoon's final qualifying session

(RIGHT) The Canadian invader, Tim Boychuk, in his party-themed "Happy Hour" Camaro, laid down the best numbers of the early runners, landing on the #9 rung on the ladder with a solid 4.175 - 149.90. He launched hard, with the Goodyears showing some serious wrinkles, and lots of clutch dust, but it appeared from the speed that he was off the throttle a little early

(LEFT) We're still getting used to the 2021 look of Steve Vang's new body, and the ever-changing car name which is currently "Wicked Weekender Racing". He ran a little slower than normal, only slotting in near the bottom of the provisional "B" field with a 4.442 - 134.90 effort

(RIGHT) One of the "hitters" in the FCC series was out next, as Nick Poloson in the colourful Doak & Poloson "Bucket List" car nearly hit the 3-second zone, with a 4.054 - 179.93, good for the lucky #7 spot in the "A" field

(LEFT) It hasn't taken long for series newcomer Tom Furches to make his mark in the Funny Car Chaos wars, as he came into this event as the points leader in his "Made in America" and put down a 4.162 - 171.62, slotting him into the #8 position overall

(RIGHT) Taking time off from the NHRA Top Alcohol grind (he last ran a national event in 2019), Kirk Williams drove the "Williams Bros. Racing" entry to the top of the ladder, taking the #1 position with a very strong 3.894 - 195.65 to take low e.t. and top speed of the first day of qualifying

(LEFT) Surprising more than few folks with a run almost equal to Kirk Williams, the nitro burning "Shazam!" Corvette of Eric Eoff went all the way to the #3 spot and a guaranteed position in the "A" field with an excellent 3.964 - 183.80 pass

(RIGHT) The always popular '57 Chevy "Dragon Slayer" of Andy Mears put up a respectable 4.490 - 155.12, good enough for #16 on the list

(LEFT) Looking like a series regular, appearing in the last five FCC events (last season and this year), Nancy Matter in the Dale Pulde-tuned "Guardian", was way up the ladder in the #5 position at the end of Friday, with a 4.029 - 174.76 best, placing her in the middle of the "A" field

(RIGHT) Switching from an open-bodied fuel altered to the enclosed body of a flopper, the "Bushwhacker" AA/FA driver, Jody Austin piloted the Gordon & Austin "Red Baron" into the 3-second zone, with a 3.985 - 178.50, good for the #4 position on the qualifying sheet

(LEFT) From out of the high country of Colorado, Doug Schneider brought down his "Milliken Monster" and landed near the top of the heap, with a great 3.959 - 180.14 pass that trailed only the low qualifying effort of Kirk Williams

(RIGHT) In one of the most colourful cars on the circuit, second generation funny car driver, Bob Alberty Jr. pushed his "Thunderin' Okie" to a decent 4.440 - 158.39 to place him solidly into the "B" field in the #14 position

(LEFT) As the first qualifying session drew to a close, Dustin Bradford brought his bright white "American Dream" 'Cuda to the starting line and made an on-and-off-and-on pass that clocked in at 5.322 - 140.58, leaving him at the bottom of the "C" field in the #24 spot on the overall list

(RIGHT) Closing out the round with an easy checkout pass was California's Scott Cousimano in the Texas-based Fuller & Cousimano "WTF Racing" entry. He finally stopped the clocks at 6.252 - 80.62 to sit in the #27 position, leading only Randy Mueller who failed to record a time or speed

Friday - Qualifying Session #2

(LEFT) The second qualifying session opened up under the lights, with the booked-in match race between the John Robinson Turbo Diesel Dragster (near lane) against the Ray Kelley Jet Dragster, sponsored by "Game XChange", as they put on quite a show of pyrotechnics and power

(RIGHT) Leading off the competition part of the evening was the ever-popular Troxel & Schneider "Brutus" entry, driven by Chris Schneider, and he stayed with his earlier best of 4.466 - 144.00 in the #20 spot on the list and a place in the "C" field

(LEFT) Coming out for his second hit of the day, Nick Poloson finished the day in the #6 qualifying position, courtesy of a 4.054 - 179.93 effort

(RIGHT) Gaining experience and improving performance with nearly every pass, Jade Cook made her presence felt with a solid 4.617 - 147.30 that put her near the top of the "C" field in the #19 position

(LEFT) Looking to move up the ladder, Tim Boychuk (near lane) took on Andy Mears in a battle of Chevy-bodied machines, with Boychuk coming out on top for the day with a 4.175 - 149.90, while Mears trailed on the qualifying sheet with a best for the day of 4.490 - 155.12. They both ended up in the provisional "B" field with Boychuk sitting #9, while Mears languished in the #16 spot

(RIGHT) Battling for the top spot, Kirk Williams (near lane), held onto the #1 spot with a 3.894 - 195.65, while Steve Vang (far lane), sat down near the bottom of the "B" field in #15 with a 4.442 - 132.90 pass

(LEFT) Finishing the first day of qualifying in the #10 spot (near the top of the "B" field), Jeff Cameron in the "Jake's Speed Shop" car put down a very good 4.244 - 165.99 lap

(RIGHT) Hanging on to the last rung in the provisional "A" field, Tom Furches clocked in at 4.162 - 171.62 in the patriotically hued "Made in America" car

(LEFT) It's difficult to see Doug Schneider in the far lane, but he was there and happy to be all the way up the ladder in the #2 slot, courtesy of a 3.959 - 180.14, while in the near lane, Daniel Butherus could only coax a 4.494 - 159.18 out of the Chevy-powered "Rat-A-Tude". That left him in the #17 spot, just outside the "B" field

(RIGHT) Taking his shot at the top of the heap, and falling short (#8 spot), was heavy hitter Ken Singleton in the very familiar "High Risk" car. His best of the day was "only" a 4.078 - 181.60, but he still had one more chance on Saturday afternoon to improve his placing in the show

(LEFT) Not having a very good day at all, Bill Bernard ended up well down the list in the lowly #23 position, with a "best" of just 5.014 - 97.95 and at risk of not even qualifying for the "C" field. He had one more shot on Saturday to get down the track though.

(RIGHT) Always contending for the best appearing award, Bob Alberty Jr.'s southwestern muralled "Thunderin' Okie" finished Friday near the bottom of the "B" field with a 4.440 - 158.39 for the #14 spot on the ladder

(LEFT) Not quite making it all the way to the finish line under power, evidenced by his 4.279 - 157.45 timeslip, Shayne Lawson in the former Paul Romine-owned "Man O' War" Mustang, ended the day in the #12 spot in the middle of the "B" field

(RIGHT) The evening qualifying session came to a close with another pass by the "Red Baron" as new driver Jody Austin muscled it into the 3-second zone with a best of the day 3.985 - 178.50 for the #4 rung on the ladder

The latest update as of May 2, 2021

The NHRA put on their third national event of the 2021 season over the weekend, succesfully closing out the 40-year history of the Lucas Oil NHRA Southern Nationals at soon to be demolished Atlanta Dragway. While there were less than full fields in a number of categories (Top Fuel, Funny Car, Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car), the stands were packed for the final time and a great race featured some very close competition.

With our focus on Top Alcohol, over the mainstream fan favourites of the PRO categories, we've got the latest points standings in the chase for the 2021 Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series national championships in Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car. They are presented below. Racers are allowed to attend 10 national and 5 regional events, and claim points at 7 national and 3 regional events before their points earning ends. Once racers have reached those maximums, the standings will reflect which events they have waived points for.

These are the latest updated standings, courtesy of NHRA. The next two events for the alky cars occur on the same weekend (May 14-16) with a Central Regional at the Texas Motorplex, and the NGK NTK NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at zMax Dragway (Charlotte, NC). The following week sees them racing at the Mopar Express Lane NHRA SpringNationals at Houston Raceway Park. Then the season continues with either a regional or national event - or both - almost every week until mid-October.

The latest update as of April 27, 2021

After a tough day of qualifying for the FUNNY CAR CHAOS crew on the little used Amarillo Dragway, conditions improved slightly for Saturday afternoon's third (final) qualifying session. With the hot sun beating down on the old asphalt, no one expected any really quick e.t.'s, but a number of racers did step up and improve their positions heading into the evening elimination rounds.

QUALIFYING - Session #3 - Final

(LEFT) First out of the lanes was the beautiful multi-coloured "High Heaven" Camaro of the Jackson family, driven by Keith Jackson. They didn't improve on Friday's best of 5.294 - 101.65, and dropped out of the "B" field, falling from #15 to #21 on the final list

(RIGHT) Making a big move upwards, Jade Cook pushed her gasoline burning, nitrous boosted "Nemesis" to a 4.757 - 144.33 to advance from the middle of the "C" field (#21) into the "B" field in the #14 position

(LEFT) Another one who made a big step up was Chuck Loftin in his nitro hemi powered "Motivation" Mustang. After a Friday best of 5.235 - 104.54, Chuck moved up four spots to near the top of the "B" field, with a solid 4.550 - 134.01 pass

(RIGHT) Coming all the way up the ladder from the "lucky" #13 position to the very top of the heap, Colorado's Bill Bernard whipped the "Hellanor" to a much improved (from 5.032 - 110.69) to low e.t. and top speed marks of 4.084 - 177.67 and the #1 position in the "A" field

(LEFT) Before they ran, some of the racers checked out the starting line, with "hired gun" Jake 'The Snake' Sanders (left) giving his advice to New Mexico's Lyle 'Cone Hunter' Greenberg (right)

(RIGHT) With no NHRA national events on the immediate horizon, Jeff 'The Surfer' Diehl (left) came out from California to give Washington state's Don 'Atomic Punk' Knoblauch ideas on how to handle the traction issues

(LEFT) Despite a solid launch, Nick Johnson wasn't able to improve on his previous 4.659 - 148.65 in the "Prairie Fire" and dropped out of the "A" field, from #8 to #11, landing in the middle of the "B" field

(RIGHT) Even though he picked up more than a half second in e.t., Tim Boychuk only climbnd two rungs on the ladder, moving up from #18 to #16, leaving him at the bottom of the "B" field with a 4.659 - 148.65 clocking

(LEFT) Showing that there's still room in FCC for an old-school, short wheelbase Vega, Mike Buchanan pushed the "Hombre" to an improved 5.050 - 141.14 pass (over Friday's 5.346 - 104.46, but fell three spots from #16 to #19, and a spot in the middle of the "C" field

(RIGHT) After a solid previous day's showing that left him #3 on the list and solidly in the "A" field with his 4.405 - 160.50, the "Northland Express" of Mitch Bowen couldn't improve and dropped down to #6 on the final qualifying chart

(LEFT) Not content to sit on Friday's 4.588 - 139.33 (good for #7), Jeff Cameron coaxed a better pass out of the "Jake's Speed Shop" car, but his 4.457 - 151.45 didn't move him up the charts and he stayed in the #7 spot

(RIGHT) The biggest improver on the property was the Kirk Williams driven "Williams Bros. Racing" entry, as he went from the very bottom of the list, in the #29 spot at 11.435 - 47.29, all the way up to the middle of the "A" field - and lane choice in the first round of eliminations - with a very good 4.281 - 163.94 pass

(LEFT) Cutting nearly a full second off his Friday numbers (5.627 - 99.27), Bob Alberty Jr. jumped up from #19 to #13 (and advanced from the "C" to the "B" field) with a much better 4.732 - 151.61 out of the "Thunderin' Okie" entry

(RIGHT) Considering all the success he's had over the past few years at FUNNY CAR CHAOS events, it was surprising to see that Ken Singleton wasn't able to improve his performance or position with the "High Risk" car. He even dropped a spot from Friday's #2 to #3 on the final list, with his Friday run of 4.173 - 142.34 standing as his best going into eliminations

(LEFT) Another case of one step forward - and two steps back - as Shayne Lawson improved from Friday's 4.560 - 120.51 to a last session 4.465 - 145.68, but saw the "Man O' War" drop from #6 to #8 on the final list and a first round pairing with the low qualifier in the "A" field

(RIGHT) Saving his best effort for last, Lyle Greenberg got down the track in an improved fashion from Friday's dismal 7.448 - 107.43 timeslip to a much better 5.699 - 112.91 in the final session. That's where the good news stopped for the "Cone Hunter" as she only moved up one spot from #25 to #24 and a spot near the bottom of the "C" field

PRE-RACE CEREMONIES and FLYPAST

Before things got down to business, the Star Spangled Banner brought everyone to their feet, on the track and in the stands

While the announcer held court in front of the tower, a group of vintage USAF warplanes and aerobatic planes did an impressive flypast

Here's three more images of the vintage warplane flypast during the national anthem. Great shots on a very clear day.

I'm going out on a limb here, but I think these last two flypast photos are of a Tiger Moth bi-plane, a favourite of cropdusters and aerobatic flyers. Corrections are cordially invited

More areobatics as the show continues in the sky. On the left we see a pair of vintage bi-planes, while on the right, a more modern version of the bi-plane with an enclosed two-seater cockpit

ELIMINATIONS - Round One - "A" Field

With the pre-race festivities out of the way, it was time to get down to business, as the first pair of cars rolled out of the staging lanes and fired up to start eliminations. Leading the way were the "A" field.

On the left, we've got Kirk Williams lighting up the tires on the burnout, while Steve Vang slows to a stop after his tire heater on the right

Kicking off the first round of eliminations, the #4 and #5 cars in the "A" field faced off. Burning out first was Kirk Williams in the "Williams Bros. Racing" entry. When the light turned green, his opponent, Steve Vang in the "Weekend Warrior" launched first (.069 to .083) but couldn't hold off Williams' 4.487 - 168.22 as his 4.610 - 135.55 fell a couple of car lengths short at the finish line

Getting a free pass when scheduled opponent Shayne Lawson sat in the pits with breakage, Bill Bernard laid down some serious power with a very good 4.114 - 176.35 on the competition bye

Here's a quartet of Nick Poloson in the "Bucket List", burning out, then launching hard enroute to the win over the no-show (broken) Jeff Cameron. Just past the finish line, it looks like Poloson got into some trouble as he bounced across the centerline when he left the prepped and sticky area of the track surface, but it didn't disqualify his 4.133 - 176.95 pass

Slowing after his burnout, Ken Singleton in the very familiar "High Risk" car (left), got set to face Mitch Bowen in the "Northland Express"

Coming off the line almost together, with an .058 to .078 r.t. advantage to Ken Singleton (left), the win went to the "High Risk" car as Singleton's 3.936 - 191.76 (new low e.t. and top speed of the meet clockings), turned on the winlight over Mitch Bowen's (right) game effort of 4.279 - 165.32

ELIMINATIONS - Round One - "B" Field

Burnout time with Nick Johnson on the left, and Jade Cook on the right

If you just looked at the e.t.'s it appeared to be a close race - on paper - but Jade Cook in her "Nemesis" entry (left) gained a HUGE advantage right at the starting line as she left a sleeping Nick Johnson in the "Prairie Fire" (right), by a .067 to .333 margin, making her 4.682 - 145.20 pass much better than needed to hold off Johnson's way-too-late 4.686 - 146.65 losing effort

(LEFT) Stopping at the end of his burnout is Matt Nissen in the "Runnin' Down A Dream" car

(RIGHT) Staged up and ready to launch are Chuck Loftin in the "Motivation" Mustang (near lane) and Matt Nissen's "Runnin' Down a Dream" in the far lane

(LEFT) Launching first (.044 to .196) in the blown alky car, Matt Nissen (right side) took an immediate lead over Chuck Loftin (left side), but the bigger horsepower of the blown fuel entry took the winlight, by a 4.535 - 162.37 to 4.724 - 149.01 decision. The gap at the stripe was barely a car length in what turned into a very close race

ELIMINATIONS - Round One - "C" Field

ELIMINATIONS - Round Two - "A" Field

ELIMINATIONS - Round Two - "B" Field

ELIMINATIONS - Round Two - "C" Field

The latest update as of April 25, 2021

The second event on the 2021 FUNNY CAR CHAOS calendar went off under the lights at Amarillo Dragway last night...

Winner of the "A" field was defending series champion Ken Singleton in his all-conquering "High Risk" car. Runner-up was Kirk Williams in the "Williams Bros. Racing" entry.

In the "B" field, Daniel Butherus and his "Rat-A-Tude" took the big prize, while series newcomer Jade Cook garnered the runner-up spot in her "Nemesis" entry.

And finally, the "C" field trophy went to Tom Furches and his "Made in America" team. Runner-up was Clay Cunningham in his "Still Crazy" car.

The latest update as of April 24, 2021

After a very successful - and that's putting it mildly - season opener at the Texas Motorplex, the FUNNY CAR CHAOS crews moved on to Amarillo Dragway for their second event of the 2021 season. With 37 cars on the pre-entry list (down a bunch from the world-record breaking 67 cars on the list at the 'Plex) it was still a very strong turnout, portending strong support for the FCC from the racers. Adding a third ("C") field to this race helped keep up the interest level among the racers and may lead to it becoming a fixture at future events. Here is the full report from the first day, Friday, with photos and results from both qualifying sessions.

After so many years in mothballs, it was very cool to see the original Amarillo Dragway sign (left) on display before qualifying, then we fast forward to 2021 and see the current "A" board (right)

A couple of pre-race pit shots are next, with Scott Pareso and the "Altered Reality" crew preparing to fire up the car before the first session, and Ray Stringer and the "Blown Cent-Less" crew spinning it over for the warm-up

FRIDAY - First Qualifying Session

After two days of inclement weather, ranging from hail and rain, to wind and sun, conditions calmed down enough for the first qualifying session at the second FUNNY CAR CHAOS event of the season at venerable Amarillo Dragway. The starting line was tacky but most of the cars lost traction at some point enroute to the finish line. And it wasn't the "Big Show" cars that invaded the Texas Motorplex last month having trouble, as none were present in Amarillo, but everyone from low-buck Chevy operations, to serious blown fuel combos that were struggling to post good numbers. We don't have the first qualifying session results, but numbers quoted in our report are the best recorded for each car after two sessions.

Two of the series regulars, Daniel Butherus (left) in his Chevy-powered "Rat-A-Tude" and Dustin Bradford in the "American Dream" (right) tried their luck and came up with varying results. Butherus ended up #9 on the qualifying list with a decent 4.672 - 152.09 clocking, while Bradford had obvious problems in his first attempt when the 'chute popped out on the launch. He kept it in to the finish line in the evening session and put down a 5.426 - 137.83 for the #17 spot on the list

Two long distance travellers came out next, with Don Knoblauch making the long tow down from Sumner, WA to run his "Atomic Punk" Camaro,(left) but not finding results to his liking as his best pass of the day was only 7.011 - 72.42, landing him in the #23 slot. Coming from even farther afield, Edmonton, AB, Canada's Tim Boychuk brought his popular "Happy Hour" entry out for the first time in 18 months, and slipped and slid to a 5.459 - 125.57 for the #18 position

Coming out strong in his "Northland Express", Flagstaff, Arizona's Mitch Bowen (left) surprised quite a few people with a strong #3 qualifying pass of 4.405 - 160.50 pass. On the other hand, Kirk Williams in the "Williams Bros. Racing" entry, didn't get very far before shutting off to a last on the list 11.435 - 47.29, only "good" for the #29 spot on the list

It looks like a full-on burnout on the left and the start of a second one on the right, but Ray Stringer in the "Blown Cent-Less" entry had major grip issues on his launch, and could only manage a best of 7.525 - 116.55 to end the day far down the ladder in the #26 position

Coming out with a new body and new look this year was Steve Vang, as the "Wicked Weekender" (left) managed to put himself solidly into the "A" field (at least provisionally) with a 4th best 4.478 - 148.40 pass. The only Chevy Vega in the field, the "Hombre" driven by Mike Buchanan (right) was well down the list, clocking in at 5.346 - 104.46 for the #16 spot

A newcomer to the circuit this year, Jade Cook in the "Nemesis" (left), didn't get too far under power, with a timeslip reading 6.060 - 78.57, only good enough for the #21 position. Faring a little better was the beautiful high country Camaro of Colorado's Keith Jackson (right), as the "High Heaven" kept the throttle open long enough to land in the #15 spot with a 5.294 - 101.65 pass

Taking up a lot of space on the page is one of our favourite FCC cars, the very photogenic "Cone Hunter" entry of Albuquerque's Lyle Greenberg, seen doing his burnout, then backing up (upper photos), then leaving the line, dropping cylinders and spinning the tires hard (lower photos). The results weren't pretty as the scoreboards told the tale with a 7.448 - 107.43 displayed

Late in the first session the Texas-based "Guardian" of Nancy Matter ran, but she didn't get very far under power and ended up near the bottom of the list (#27) with a clocking of 8.524 - 79.69. The team was obviously hoping for much better results in the evening session

Closing out the first session was Nick Poloson (right), as he topped the charts, with a very good (for the conditions) 4.159 - 170.83 in the "Bucket List" car to take provisional pole going into the evening session. As the crews got busy in the pits prepping for the second session, the ever-threatening storm clouds gathered over the track

FRIDAY - Second Qualifying Session

With the temperatures dropping rapidly after sunset, a number of teams decided against trying to hook up on the cold track and stayed in the pits. A few of the teams managed to improve but most of the racers were hoping for much better conditions in the final qualifying session on Saturday afternoon. With a better weather forecast on tap, it seemed like a prudent move. As the FCC gang doesn't provide separate reports for the first two sessions, we can only report the best numbers recorded for each racer from the combined results.

Streaking into the night, the "Prairie Fire", driven by Nick Johnson (left) anchored the "A" field in the #8 spot, with a solid 4.659 - 148.65, while Blaine Cunningham in his "Animalize" entry (right) went nowhere in a hurry, finally stopping the clocks at 8.983 - 71.96, leaving him near the bottom of the pack

The old school '55 Chevy (or is it a '57 ?) "Dragon Slayer" of Andy Mears ended up in the middle of the "B" field (#12) with a decent 4.987 - 132.16 e.t. and speed

Coming all the way from Washington state, the "Atomic Punk" of Don Knoblauch (left) had some extra tuning help on hand, as Jeff 'The Surfer' Diehl joined the team for the weekend. His first effort ended early with a 7.011 - 72.42 timeslip and a good second try was negated by rolling the lights and getting a NTR (no time recorded timeslip)

Out for the first time in a very long time, Canada's Tim Boychuk in the "Happy Hour" Camaro, couldn't have been overjoyed with an 18th best 5.459 - 125.57 that put him all the way down into the (just added) "C" field. With only one more chance to knock off the rust, Boychuk and crew have to be hoping for much better numbers on Saturday

Enjoying the day much more was Oklahoma's Shayne Lawson (right) as the sharp looking "Man O' War" pounded out a good 4.560 - 120.51 for the #6 spot and a chance to play in the "A" field on Saturday night

As reported earlier, Ray Stringer and his "Blown Cent-Less" didn't exactly light up the scoreboards with a best of 7.525 - 116.55.

We're not sure if Steve Vang and his "Wicked Weekender" (left) improved in the evening session, but he managed to hold on to the #4 position, while Tod Barker's "Back in Black" 'Vette surprised a few people with the second fastest speed of the day, and the #5 qualifying position, with a very good 4.523 - 163.63 timeslip

Sporting new colours for the 2021 season, the former "Magnolia Missile" of Jeff Cameron (left) is now known as "Jake's Speed Shop", and he didn't disappoint his new sponsors, coming in as the #7 qualifier at 4.588 - 139.53. The best looking 'Vette in the pits, the "Cone Hunter" of New Mexico's Lyle Greenberg (right) had mixed feelings about his evening pass, as he lit the tires on the launch and stayed with it, smoking the tires to the finish line and finally stopping the clocks at 7.448 - 107.43 to sit just outside the "C" field at #25. It wasn't good, but it was spectacular

Two of the final shots from this report featured Clay Cunningham in the "Still Crazy" entry (left), on his way to an on-and-off (and probably at least one more on-and-off) before the clocks (finally) stopped at 6.240 - 128.05 that put him in the #22 spot

Late in the evening Chuck Loftin in the "Motivation" Mustang made his second attempt, shutting off early to a 5.235 - 104.54, only good enough for the #14 spot on the ladder

Saving the best for last, defending Funny Car Chaos series champion, Ken Singleton in the "High Risk" entry shut off a tad early on his qualifier and slipped into the #2 spot on the ladder with a 4.173 - 142.34 timeslip, landing less than two hundredths of a second behind the provisional #1 qualifer, Nick Poloson

Going through the results, it's obvious that most cars shut off before the finish line as the 200+ mph speeds at previous events (especially the season opener at the Texas Motorplex) were lacking, as Nick Poloson's top speed of the day (170.83) would have been well down the rankings at almost any other event on the schedule. Here's hoping for a tighter track and warmer track temperatures on Saturday. Stay tuned for more pictures from Friday's qualifying and results from Saturday's eliminations.

The latest update as of April 20, 2021

Following the conclusion of the DENSO Spark Plugs NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at Las Vegas, here are the latest points standings in the Top Alcohol classes. The next event on their calendar was scheduled for last weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway (Madison, IL) but weather forced it to be rescheduled to October 1-3. The next national event for the alky cars is this coming weekend at Atlanta Dragway. Then they have a week off before back-to-back national events at Charlotte, NC (NGK NTK NHRA Four-Wide Nationals) and Houston, TX (MOPAR Express Lane NHRA SpringNationals).

TOP ALCOHOL DRAGSTER

TOP ALCOHOL FUNNY CAR

The latest update as of March 31, 2021

Much more to come, but here's the start of the photos from Friday night's first two qualifying sessions for Funny Car Chaos and Outlaw Fuel Altereds from the 'Plex.

Friday, April 2, 2021 UPDATE: Added the balance of Friday night's qualifying shots. That's the easy part done; now all I have to do is re-arrange everything in a chronological order and caption every photo. Looks like a long weekend's worth of work...

The latest update as of March 30, 2021

As promised, we've got lots and lots of photos from NITRO MADNESS but it's going to take a few days to get them all sorted and captioned and posted. Yeah, yeah, same old, same old from Northern Thunder, but we are working on it now. Here's a grab-bag of stuff from Saturday night (without captions) until we can go through all the pics and put the stories together to go with them. Stay tuned!

SATURDAY - Final Qualifying Session

SATURDAY - Eliminations

We're still sifting through all the pictures and going over the results so it's going to be a while before we have this all organized and captioned. Please bear with us.

The latest update as of March 29, 2021

Starting with the Outlaw Fuel Altered final, and working our way up to the Funny Car Chaos "A" field, here's the final round shots to get this party started. Stay tuned for many, many more over the next few days.

The first pair out of the lanes for the finals, were from the Outlaw Fuel Altereds association, and they produced a great race, with Aaron Morrow driving the Morrow & Darby "Nitro Relapse" (far lane) against Mary Reep in the family operated "Grim Reeper". Leaving first, but unfortunately with a BIG redlight shining on her side of the tree, was Mary Reep, handing the automatic win to Aaron Morrow.

Next up was the final for the "D" field, and it featured Bob Alberty Jr. in his beautiful "Thunderin' Okie" (near lane), who redlighted (and shutoff) away his chance against Tom Furches in the "Made in America" (far lane). Furches laid down his best run of eliminations (4.069 - 164.25) for the win.

Moving on to the "C" field final, it featured the Plymouth Arrow-bodied "Illinois Thunder" of Levi Keenen (near lane), but his best of eliminations pass of 3.820 - 194.64 fell to the very strong 3.669 - 205.07 winning run of the alky burning "BTnT Motorsports" entry of Bill Bernard in the far lane.

Getting down to the final two races of the weekend, NHRA Top Fuel racer Scott Palmer brought out his new Top Alcohol Funny Car (near lane), and despite improving on every run, lost traction early and shutoff to a 5-second pass, dropping the decision to Doug Schneider's excellent 3.717 - 200.12 in his "Schneider Racing" entry. The "B" field was predominantly alcohol cars, as only three of the eight cars were nitro-fuelled.

The biggest race of the weekend, between the underdog blown alky car of Kyle Smith in his "Smith Family Racing" Mustang (far lane), and the NHRA Big Show-legal blown fuel entry of Del Worsham in the "Worsham & Fink" Toyota didn't quite live up to expectations, as Worsham smoked the tires and shut off early, while Smith rang up his quickest and fastest ever 1/8-mile time at 3.614 - 211.41 for the BIG win. Worsham tried his best, pedalling to a 4.718 e.t. and coasting across the finish line at 105.87 mph.

The latest update as of March 28, 2021

It was a long, tough weekend for all concerned at the FUNNY CAR CHAOS season opener at the Texas Motorplex. Finishing really late Friday night, then wrapping not quite as late last night, the FCC teams put on an awesome show with some incredible performances and surprising results. The winners of the "A" and "B" fields were driving blown alky floppers, and they prevailed over their heavily favoured nitro burning opponents.

Despite series record performances in qualifying and the first round of eliminations, culminating in all-time bests of 3.207 - 270+ timeslips, Del Worsham shook, smoked, and sashayed down the track, as Kyle Smith laid down another consistent low-3.60 pass to turn on the winlight. His winning e.t. was a career best (over the 1/8-th mile) of 3.61 - 211.41 in his NHRA-legal Top Alcohol Funny Car.

As they promised, tuner Tim Wilkerson and driver Richard Hartman broke the 300-mph barrier on Saturday, with another jaw-dropping 4.920 - 304.53 pass. It wasn't easy as the car started hazing the tires at half-track, but Hartman stayed with it all the way to the 1320 stripe, with lots of engine smoke trailing at that point. Despite many old-school naysayers objections to the "pedigree" of the car, it was still an absolutely remarkable performance for a car without much downforce or aerodynamics.

With so many cars running over the two-day event, our photographer didn't get much sleep - in bed at 3:00 a.m. both days - and that didn't leave much - if any - photo processing time. His latest message, coming in this morning as he started the long drive home, was "don't expect to see any pics until Tuesday"... so we'll all just have to wait patiently until then.

The latest update as of March 27, 2021

Our correspondent (BIG Bob Snyder) didn't send any photos last night, probably due to the late hour that qualifying finished at, but the BIGGGGG broke through on Facebook. A new Funny Car Chaos record, by an absolute TON was set by Del Worsham at.... are you ready for this for an 1/8-mile clocking: 3.210 - 270.90. Comparing the e.t. to the speeds recorded at the Gatornationals, it appears that he might have even shut off a tad early. The final qualifying session for the big race tonight didn't show any improvement for Del, but he's at the very top of the 63 cars that recorded an e.t. (68 cars made at least an attempted pass). There's only 32 spots for eliminations tonight, splite into four 8-car fields, with an ultimate bump spot held down by Keith Jackson in the "High Heaven" Camaro at 4.086 - 185.66.

The other really big news was an absolute World Record for a AA/Fuel Altered, set by Richard Hartman in a chassis provided by his employer Tim Wilkerson. Some diehards have complained that it's just a "big show" funny car with an altered body and corporate sponsorship adorning its sides. Yes, that's true in one sense, but Hartman took pains to explain that it was using antiquated big-show running gear, but that was still sufficient to put down an absolutely jaw-dropping 4.920 - 296.13 pass last night. That was on the full quarter-mile as he's taking part in a bit of a world record setting competition with the Farris brothers "War Wagon" car, piloted by Kebin Kinsley. The last words from Hartman were "We're going to see if we can run 300 on Saturday night". Hang on to see if it happens.

Here's the link to the YouTube video of the Friday evening pass. There's a semi-cool two-minute solo guitar rendition (ala Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock over 50 years ago) of the Star Spangled Banner, complete with slow-motion shots of the team getting ready to fire the car, followed by the awesome side-by-side battle with Kinsley.

The latest update as of March 25, 2021

Here's a few pics from yesterday's test 'n tune at the Texas Motorplex. Only a few of the cars were ready to test the track and shake off the off-season rust, but those that did hit the track were some of the best on the property. Remember, we've got heaps more coming over the weekend.

(LEFT) Making his first appearance at an FCC event, and checking out his new NHRA-legal Top Alky flopper, Scott Palmer warms up the tires before making a check-out pass

(RIGHT) Winding up the tires as the traction takes hold, Lynn Logue takes the "Back In Black" Firebird down track

(LEFT) Making an early pass, Chuck Loftin tries out the Texas traction with his "Motivation" Mustang

(RIGHT) Sporting some new sponsors, Ken Singleton crosses the starting line on the burnout in his "High Risk" entry

(LEFT) We haven't seen this car or driver for quite a while, but Mitch King brought out his infamous "Bone Bucket" Fuel Altered to shake the rust off himself and the car at the 'Plex

(RIGHT) What if they held a Funny Car race and a Top Fuel Dragster showed up? While he can't compete against the floppers, Mitch King came out of a long retirement from the NHRA Big Show (since 2004) to update his license in Terry Haddock's "rent-a-ride" Top Fueler. Here he blazes the hides on his first burnout in the car

(LEFT) Back up for another hit, Scott Palmer blazes across the starting line in his Tommy Thompson-backed alky flopper

(RIGHT) The "other" "Back In Black" entry in the field, this one owned and driven by Lynn Logue" made a test pass

(LEFT) Launching hard with the front wheels skimming the surface, defending FCC Series champion, Ken Singleton tries out the Texas traction with the "High Risk" car

(RIGHT) With the Hoosier's wrinkling nicely, Chuck Loftin launches his "Motivation" Mustang in the late afternoon

(LEFT) Scott Palmer pulls into the beams in his brand new Top Alcohol flopper

(RIGHT) Preparing to stage before a check-out pass, Tod Barker and crew line up the "Back In Black" 'Vette

Near the end of the pre-race party in the pits, there was a large banner presented to the "King and Queen" of Funny Car Chaos, two of the hardest working and most deserving of success people in the sport of drag racing, Chris & Tera Graves

The latest update as of March 25, 2021

It's happening baby! Yesterday the pits started filling at the Texas Motorplex (Ennis, TX) for what should be the event of the 2021 Funny Car Chaos season. The sun was out in the morning, cars were being unloaded and pit areas set up for this weekend's FCC extravaganza. At last count; hang on, let me check the website again..... yes, it's 69 funny cars and 17 AA/Fuel Altereds on the entry list. Today is just another move-in day, but tomorrow there will be a test 'n tune for all entrants from 10am - 4pm, followed by the first two qualifying sessions at 6pm and 9pm. With that many fuel-burning (most of them anyway) it's going to be a long night that will probably stretch into the early hours of Saturday morning before the nitro fumes and tire smoke dissipate.

Our intrepid southwest correspondent, BIG Bob Snyder arrived early and sent us a small taste of what's happening already as some series regulars and a well-known newcomer to the Chaos crew started prepping for the weekend. There's going to be heaps of pics coming our way over the next 72 hours, so stay tuned.

(LEFT) Series regular Tod Barker with his black and blue-flamed "Back In Black" Corvette returns.

(RIGHT) Another NHRA fuel racer, diehard Terry Haddock unloads his regular ride as he prepares for his second FCC race, following on last year's successful outing at San Antonio (runner-up in the "A" field) where he ran several 3.50's and hit a top speed of 234.74 mph.

(LEFT) First thing out of the trailer was the de-rigeur 5000-hp Margarita Mixer, complete with an altered grille. Looks like they learned some lessons from the Worsham family's similar machine that I first saw at the March Meet nearly ten years ago. One blip of the throttle and you've instantly got 5 gallons of margarita.

(RIGHT) Taking up lots of space with his BIG Show transporter, NHRA Top Fuel regular, Scott Palmer brought one of his other toys to the race (he's also got a Top Fuel Hydro, and a '53 Studebaker with a full-on blown fuel engine).

Just to confuse the announcers, there's two "Back In Black" entries, but this Firebird-bodied car is driven by Lynn Logue. It's also got flames, but black and gold ones. The photo on the left appeared to show him having half of Texas available for his pit area, but all that empty space will soon be filled with transporters, race cars, crews and equipment.

The ominously dark clouds that had gradually gathered during the afternoon let loose with a fury when Bob left the track for the motel as you can see in his last photo of the day. However, the weather forecast for the weekend is looking much better. The only worry is a "risk of thunderstorms" on Saturday afternoon.

The latest update as of March 22, 2021

Following the conclusion of the Western Regional event at Las Vegas, here are the current points standings in Top Alcohol Dragster and Funny Car.

The latest update as of March 21, 2021

A schedule change partway through the day at Las Vegas yesterday (due to high winds) saw the Top Alcohol cars run their second and third (final) qualifying sessions before launching into the first round of eliminations late in the day. The winds had died down and the 4000+ ft. adjusted altitude dropped to "just" 3662 ft. for the first round.

The dragsters led off with Joey Severance picking up the pace to put down a 5.286 - 273.66 to leave a tire-smoking Kim Parker with a long slow drive back to the pits. The next pair turned into a single as Mike Burns was unable to bring the idle down after the burnout, and couldn't get the car in reverse, forcing him to shut off and hop over the wall so the Eastern invader, Jackie Fricke, could make a very good 5.270 - 275.39 pass to advance to the semifinal. Following that, the next pair of A/Fuelers saw Casey Grisel take the measure of Mitch Myers by a 5.388 to 5.571 margin.

Saving the best for last, the low qualifying "Team Canada" entry of Langley, BC's Shawn Cowie bombed the scoreboards with a new low e.t. and top speed of the meet at 5.189 - 278.52 to leave fellow Division Six competitor Garrett Bateman far behind at the finish line, despite a decent 5.480 - 265.48 effort. The only downside to Cowie's very convincing win was that it matched him up with his Northwest nemesis, Severance, in the semi-final. Although Cowie holds lane choice by a full tenth, he will have to be sharp on the starting line to get past Severance.

That matchup was scheduled for noon today, but a couple of lengthy oildowns (20 minutes for a SuperComp car, and a full hour for a Top Dragster) have pushed the schedule back quite a bit so we'll have wait a bit for that result.

Before we close off for now, we can quickly mention the first round of Top Alcohol Funny Car eliminations from yesterday. The first - and only - pair featured Nick Januik taking what would have been a very close win (5.644 to 5.635) over Ray Martin... except for Martin's -.038 redlight. Januik did pick up a little more than a tenth from his qualifying number, while Martin was slightly quicker too. Finishing the very abbreviated round was a bye run into the final for the 2020 World Champion Doug Gordon who improved over his very good low qualifying 5.589 - 265.69 effort, with a slightly better 5.551 - 265.80 timeslip, and lane choice for this afternoon's final against Las Vegas local Januik.

The latest update as of March 20, 2021

The third regional event on the 2021 NHRA schedule is underway at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Featuring the Top Alcohol classes, the event has drawn an overflow field of 13 dragsters (10 injected and 3 blown), but just three funny cars. Three cars for a West Coast-ish event? Hmmm.... On the good side of the news, the bump spot for the dragsters is a 5.62 after one session, which saw 12 of the 13 cars making their first runs of the season. With two more qualifiers on tap for this afternoon, the bubble will almost certainly drop into the low 5.40's or better. On the (not so) funny side of the pits, all three cars - all quality cars by the way - are automatically into the semi-finals and the low qualifier will have a bye into the final round tomorrow.

Contestant numbers in Top Alcohol Funny Car haven't been good to this point of the season, with only five cars attending the Regional opener at No Problem Raceway, followed by nine cars at the "Baby" Gators and the Gatornationals. Now we're down to just three cars at Las Vegas. I've got to think that the turnout at the next event on the schedule, the Denso Spark Plugs Four Wide Nationals, also at Las Vegas, will see a much larger contingent of funny cars.

So what happened to the traditional NHRA season opener, the WINTERNATIONALS? It was originally planned for the week after Easter, April 9 - 11, but the latest health orders in California have precluded that happening until later in the year. How much later? It's really unknown at this point. In a similar vein, the first event on the NHRA Heritage Series calendar, the fabled MARCH MEET at Famoso, California is now tentatively scheduled for May 25 - 27th instead of the obvious early March date. And the rescheduled date isn't even firm at this point.

Let's turn to the good news, and there's plenty of it from the FUNNY CAR CHAOS gang, with their season starting next weekend at the Texas Motorplex. The pre-entry list of Funny Cars was up to 67 cars at one point, but has since fallen to "only".... hold on, STOP THE KEYBOARD.... As of right now, the list is back up to 69 cars, including at least five "Big Show" capable entries (Scott Palmer, Terry Haddock, Del Worsham, Todd Simpson, Terry Totten), and a host of full-on NHRA Top Alcohol cars (Chip Beverett, Ray Drew, Kyle Smith, Bill Naves, Mark Billington, Bill Bernard,). And I won't even try to list the Heritage Series legal cars, but there's lots of them too.

Did I mention the Fuel Altered show that's running in conjunction with the Funny Cars? There were 21 pre-entries, but that's since been trimmed to just 17 cars, almost all of which are burning serious amounts of nitro. Is that enough? Or do you want a few jet cars thrown in, plus "Dirty South" Gassers, and a host of other racing entertainment. Browsing through all the very cool FCC posters produced for this race shows an attempt to set a world record for a Fuel Altered... running a full quarter-mile. The current standard is a 5.286 (set by Joey Haas in 2013) and a mind-boggling 286.07 (by Ron Fassl in 2005). The Farris brothers, with Kebin Kinsley in the HOT seat, will be going all-out to shatter both ends of the record at the Motorplex.

That's enough for this morning, but I'll be back tomorrow with some updates from Las Vegas, and the latest NHRA Top Alcohol points standings on Monday. Stay tuned!

The latest update as of March 10, 2021

It's a little hard to believe, but the first national event on the 2021 NHRA schedule is set to begin in less than 24 hours at Gainesville Raceway. In a way, it's actually been going for nearly a week already, with the "Baby Gators" last weekend, followed by two days of testing earlier this week. The bigger show starts tomorrow morning with Sportsman qualifying, then the Pro and Semi-Pro teams begin qualifying on Friday morning. The weather outlook is excellent, with very little chance of rain, and plenty of sunny Florida skies, accompanied with high temperatures around 80 F (27 C) each day. Almost perfect racing conditions, and if the elapsed times and speeds already recorded over the past week are an indication, it's going to be QUICK and FAST.

The Top Alcohol cars have run two regional events already, with last weekend's Eastern Regional at Gainesville, and the previous weekend's Central Regional in Belle Rose, LA. While the car turnout at the Louisiana race was a little low, with just five Funny Cars and eight Dragsters, the quality of competition was high. And last weekend's Gainesville race saw 14 Dragsters and nine Funny Cars. Showing how tough the competition was this early in the season, the bump spot for the funnies was 5.662, while the bubble for the dragsters was a fairly stout 5.317, with the first alternate at 5.365.

While there are a total of 18 Dragsters (three blown and 15 injected) on the entry list for the Gatornationals, there are just nine Funny Cars on the list. Although the quality of the nine entries is fairly high, the non-participation has got to be worrying for the class. Yes, there are numerous reasons why a lot of cars are still sitting at home, from the pandemic, to the economy, to the uncertainty of the schedule(s). Even though there are strong signs that the worst of the pandemic is over, and restrictions on "normal" life are being, or soon will be, lifted and/or eased, it's still a tough ask to haul a car a long way to a race with all the uncertainty surrounding the sport at the moment.

That said, it's time to deal with what's happening now and enjoy the start of a new season of serious drag racing. We'll bring you a synopsis of what lies ahead in the fuel and alcohol categories over the next two days, then get into the results from Gainesville as they start coming in on Friday morning. Stay tuned!

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